Improved sensitivity for low abundance ions in glow discharge Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry following ion preselection in an external octopole ion guide

Abstract

Ion preselection was used to increase the sensitivity of FTICR-MS for analyzing solid samples with a dc glow discharge ionization source. By decreasing the frequency of the rf voltage applied to its rods, an octopole ion guide functioned as a high-pass mass filter to destabilize the trajectories of the low mass, high abundance ions. An increase in detection sensitivity for high mass, low abundance Pb and Sn ions in a NIST SRM 1104 steel sample was observed.