Analytical performance of a high-pressure radio frequency-only quadrupole collision cell with an axial field applied by using conical rods

Abstract

The effect on triple-quadrupole performance of applying an axial field, in an rf-only quadrupole collision cell operated at pressures sufficiently high that collisional focusing is operating, has been investigated. The advantages of such cells have been shown previously to include increased transmission and much improved resolution in fragment ion spectra relative to the performance of collision cells operating at lower gas pressures. The disadvantages of high-pressure collision cells all derive from the relatively long transit times for the ions, which can be long relative to characteristic times for scanning the first mass filter (precursor ion selector) or for switching its setting in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) cycles. The present work describes experiments on a high-pressure cell in which an axial field is created through use of conical rather than cylindrical or hyperbolic rods. In addition, results of computations of the electric fields within such a cell, and of ion trajectories through it, are presented. It is shown that application of axial fields of the order of 0.1 V/cm can remove all hysteresis effects associated with the long ion transit times, and thus provide excellent performance in quantitation work using MRM, as well as in other scan modes. Furthermore, the advantages of collisional focusing in quadrupole collision cells are shown to be unimpaired by these low axial fields.