PNNL

Abstract

We describe the development of a dual polarity traveling wave (TW) Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations (SLIM) ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) device capable of switching both positive and negative ions that are traveling simultaneously along the same path to different regions of the SLIM. Through simulations, the routing efficiency of the SLIM TW switch was compared to a SLIM direct current-based (DC) switch developed previously for IMS-MS. We also report on the initial experimental evaluation of a dual polarity SLIM platform which uses the TW based ion switch to achieve higher resolution multipass serpentine ultralong path with extended routing (SUPER) IMS separations. Overall these results show that the dual polarity TW switch is not only as effective as DC switching in terms of routing efficiency, but also is agnostic to the polarity of the ions being routed (i.e. works for both positive and negative ions).