The Electrostatic Ion Beam Trap : a mass spectrometer of infinite mass range

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that an Electrostatic Ion Beam Trap (EIBT) functions similarly to a quadrupole trap, allowing for mass spectrometry of ions across an infinite mass range by exploiting its unique stability properties.

Contribution

It reveals the stability mechanism of EIBT using Hill's equation and shows its potential as a mass spectrometer with unlimited mass range, independent of ion charge or mass.

Findings

EIBT stability is governed by Hill's equation.

EIBT operates similarly to a quadrupole trap in the ion reference frame.

EIBT can trap ions of any mass simultaneously, enabling infinite mass range spectrometry.

Abstract

We study the ions dynamics inside an Electrostatic Ion Beam Trap (EIBT) and show that the stability of the trapping is ruled by a Hill's equation. This unexpectedly demonstrates that an EIBT, in the reference frame of the ions works very similar to a quadrupole trap. The parallelism between these two kinds of traps is illustrated by comparing experimental and theoretical stability diagrams of the EIBT. The main difference with quadrupole traps is that the stability depends only on the ratio of the acceleration and trapping electrostatic potentials, not on the mass nor the charge of the ions. All kinds of ions can be trapped simultaneously and since parametric resonances are proportional to the square root of the charge/mass ratio the EIBT can be used as a mass spectrometer of infinite mass range.