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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Spatial Separation of Molecular Conformers and Clusters
Published on: January 9, 2014
Investigation of electrospray ionization and electrostatic focusing devices using a three-dimensional electrospray
J Will Thompson1, John W Eschelbach, Richard T Wilburn
1Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3290, USA. jj@unc.edu
Abstract:
A novel instrument for profiling the current density of nanoelectrospray ionization plumes in three dimensions has been developed. A hemispherically-shaped electrostatic lens at atmospheric pressure is found to be able to compress the space-charge in nano-ESI and increase the average current density in the plume to three times the nominal value. Ion transmission into a single-quadrupole mass spectrometer is found to roughly double using the electrostatic lens. Data also suggest that ion transmission into the first vacuum region for a skimmer-type mass spectrometer interface using nano-ESI may be typically 40% or better with no special focusing device used.
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