Simulation study of three new quadrupole ion funnels to improve low-mass ion transmission

By applying radio frequency (RF) and direct current (DC) voltages to corresponding ring electrodes, ion funnel (IF) can efficiently focus and transmit ions. However, IF has an inherent mass discrimination problem that will greatly limit low mass-to-charge (m/z) ion focusing and transmission. To improve the transmission efficiency (TE) of the IF, this paper explores three new profile quadrupole ion funnels (QIF).

Computer simulations of the potential field distributions of QIFs and conventional IFs were performed to assess their focusing characteristics. To compare the TE, ion optics simulation programs SIMION and AXSIM were used to perform a series of simulations. Three QIF types (toroidal, cylindrical, and hyperbolic configurations) were used to improve ion TE, and their transmission and focus performance were also compared with conventional IF.

By simulating the trajectories of ions in the IF, the optimum electrical parameters for three new QIFs were obtained and compared with conventional IFs, with TE improvements recorded for m/z < 100 of 16%, 20%, and 13%.

The results indicate that studying these three new IF configurations has great research significance for improving sensitivity to low m/z ions in mass spectrometer instruments.