Using travelling wave of electric field in a collision dissociation cell for tandem mass spectrometers

Configuration of a collision dissociation cell with a traveling wave of electric field is proposed for a tandem time-of-flight spectrometer with the parallel analysis of parent ions. The traveling wave is determined by a step-by-step shift of a potential at the electrodes inserted between the quadrupole electrodes of the cell. Traveling wave mode was shown to provide the necessary frequency of daughter ion packets as well as their time confinement. The characteristics of the ion packets at the exit from the cell are investigated.