Ion Trap Geometry

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical method to evaluate and optimize ion trap geometries for minimal mass shift, proposing a new design that outperforms existing traps in ejection delay and fabrication simplicity.

Contribution

A novel theoretical procedure for ion trap mass shift evaluation and an alternative trap geometry with lower ejection delay and easier fabrication.

Findings

Validated the procedure against known ion traps.

Existing traps are near optimal within their geometry class.

Proposed trap geometry has lower mass shift and is easier to fabricate.

Abstract

This work aims to find ion trap geometry for a high-quality ion trap mass analyzer that minimizes mass shift and is easy to fabricate. The theoretical procedure of the ion trap mass shift evaluation is developed, which provides a quantitative criterion of the mass shift (ion ejection delay in comparison with ideal ion trap) for the correct comparison of the different ion trap geometries. This procedure is validated by comparison with known experimental facts about existing mass analyzers: 3D hyperbolic ion trap (Finnigan), 2D hyperbolic ion trap (Thermo), Rectilinear Ion Trap (Purdue), and quadrupole mass filter. The developed theoretical procedure optimizes known ion trap geometries for low mass shift. Applying this procedure to various ion trap geometries reveals that in terms of the mass shift existing ion traps are close to the optimum in a framework of chosen geometry. Alternative ion trap geometry of very low mass shift, simple in fabrication, and satisfying the requirement of high mechanical accuracy is proposed. The proposed alternative ion trap geometry provides a lower ejection delay than linear ion traps with hyperbolic rods.