High-throughput miniature cylindrical ion trap array mass spectrometer

A fully multiplexed cylindrical ion trap (CIT) array mass spectrometer with four parallel ion source/mass analyzer/detector channels has been built to allow simultaneous high-throughput analysis of multiple samples. A multi-element external chemical ionization/electron ionization source was coupled to a parallel array of CITs each of equal size (internal radius 2.5 mm), and the signal was recorded using an array of four miniature (2-mm inner diameter) electron multipliers. Using external electron ionization, the spectra of four separate samples were recorded simultaneously in real time using a four-channel preamplifier system and a data acquisition program written using LabVIEW software. These experiments mark the first demonstration of externally generated ions being successfully trapped in a miniature CIT mass analyzer. The instrument currently provides mass/charge range of approximately m/z 50-500. Average peak width is m/z 0.3, corresponding to a resolution of 1000 at m/z 300. The four-channel mass spectrometer is housed in a single vacuum manifold and operated with a single set of control electronics. The modular design of this instrument allows scale-up to many more channels of analysis for future applications in the areas of industrial process monitoring and combinatorial analysis and in the fields of proteomics and metabolomics.