Electric Field Gradient Optimization for Complex Mixture Analysis by Trapped Ion Mobility Spectrometry

Trapped ion mobility spectrometry (TIMS) is a high resolution gas phase separation technique that utilizes an electric field gradient (EFG) to hold ions stationary against a flow of gas. In TIMS, ions are first accumulated on the rising edge of the EFG. During the mobility analysis, the magnitude of the EFG is decreased at a user-defined rate allowing ions to elute in a mobility-selective manner. In this poster, the “shape” of the EFG rising edge is optimized to improve the storage capacity of the analyzer across the mobility range.