Accelerated Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple hardware modification to time-of-flight mass spectrometry that uses variable pulsing rates and a novel reconstruction algorithm to enhance speed, duty cycle, and resolution, broadening its application scope.

Contribution

It proposes a low-cost hardware change combined with an efficient reconstruction algorithm to improve TOFMS performance significantly.

Findings

Enhanced mass resolving power achieved

Increased speed and duty cycle demonstrated

Algorithm efficiently processes large datasets

Abstract

We study a simple modification to the conventional time of flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) where a \emph{variable} and (pseudo)-\emph{random} pulsing rate is used which allows for traces from different pulses to overlap. This modification requires little alteration to the currently employed hardware. However, it requires a reconstruction method to recover the spectrum from highly aliased traces. We propose and demonstrate an efficient algorithm that can process massive TOFMS data using computational resources that can be considered modest with today's standards. This approach can be used to improve duty cycle, speed, and mass resolving power of TOFMS at the same time. We expect this to extend the applicability of TOFMS to new domains.