ION MOBILITY SPECTROMETER DEVICE WITH EMBEDDED FAIMS CELLS

A tandem instrument using a variable frequency pulsed ionization source and two separation techniques, low (IMS) and high (FAIMS) field mobility is provided. The analytical stage features a field driven FAIMS cell (1020) embedded on-axis within the IMS drift tube (1012). The FAIMS cell includes two parallel grids of approximately the same diameter as the IMS rings and can be placed anywhere along the drift tube and biased according to their location in the voltage divider ladder to create the same IMS field. The spacing between the grids constitutes the analytical gap where ions are subject, in addition to the drift field, to the asymmetric dispersive field of the FAIMS. The oscillatory motion performed during the high and low voltages of the asymmetric waveform separates the ions according to the difference in their mobilities. Using combined orthogonal techniques, such as low (IMS) and high (FAIMS) field mobility techniques, offers several advantages to ion detection and analysis techniques including low cost, no vacuum required, and the generation of 2-D spectra for enhanced detection and identification. Two analytical devices may be operated in different modes, which results in overall flexibility by adapting the hyphenated instrument to the application's requirements. With the IMS -FAIMS hardware level flexibility, the instruments may be configured and optimized to exploit different trade-offs suitable for a variety of detection scenarios of for different lists of target compounds.