Progress on Ion Beam Modulation Technique for Time-Dependent Analytical Instruments

Both Time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry and ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) are time-dependent analytical instruments which need to quickly and efficiently chop continuous ion beam into small packets for separation based on ion gates device. The effect of ion beam modulation technique can affect to some extent the performance of these instruments, such as resolution or sensitivity. So ion gates are a very important component of these instruments and ion beam modulation methods are key technique of such instruments. This review provides a development of ion beam modulation methods based on ion gates in TOF and IMS and a performance comparison between them.