High-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry: a new tool for mass spectrometry

High-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS) is a new technology for ion separation at atmospheric pressure. This review introduces the reader to FAIMS, covering topics ranging from the fundamentals and extraction of physical parameters from the raw data, to applications of FAIMS extending from homeland security to environmental analysis to proteomics. The investigation of FAIMS as an ion pre-processing tool for mass spectrometry is in its infancy, but reports in the literature illustrate that FAIMS separates isobaric ions including diastereoisomers, separates isotopes, reduces background ions by isolating ions of interest, and simplifies spectra of complex mixtures by dividing the mixture into a series of simpler subsets of ions. Applications ranging from quantitative analysis of inorganic and organometallic compounds, to studies of the conformers of intact proteins, have been reported. This review is a launching point for further exploration of FAIMS.