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Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Experimental Methods for Trapping Ions Using Microfabricated Surface Ion Traps
Published on: August 17, 2017
The ion funnel: theory, implementations, and applications
Ryan T Kelly1, Aleksey V Tolmachev, Jason S Page
1Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, P.O. Box 999, Richland, Washington 99352, USA.
Abstract:
The electrodynamic ion funnel has enabled the manipulation and focusing of ions in a pressure regime (0.1-30 Torr) that has challenged traditional approaches, and provided the basis for much greater mass spectrometer ion transmission efficiencies. The initial ion funnel implementations aimed to efficiently capture ions in the expanding gas jet of an electrospray ionization interface and radially focus them for efficient transfer through a conductance limiting orifice. We review the improvements in fundamental understanding of ion motion in ion funnels, the evolution in its implementations that have brought the ion funnel to its current state of refinement, as well as applications of the ion funnel for purposes such as ion trapping, ion cooling, low pressure electrospray, and ion mobility spectrometry.
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