Characteristics of Ion Activation and Collision Induced Dissociation Using Digital Ion Trap Technology

Collision induced dissociation (CID) is one of the most established techniques for tandem mass spectrometry analysis. The CID of mass selected ion could be realized by ion resonance excitation with a digital rectangular waveform. The method is simple, and highly efficient CID result could be obtained by optimizing the experimental parameters, such as digital waveform voltage, frequency, and q value. In this work, the relationship between ion trapping waveform voltage and frequency at preselected q value, the relationship between waveform frequency and the q value at certain ion trapping voltage for optimum CID efficiency were investigated. Experiment results showed that the max CID efficiency of precursor reserpine ions can be obtained at different trapping waveform voltage and frequency when q and β are different. Based on systematic experimental analysis, the optimum experimental conditions for high CID efficiency can be calculated at any selected β or q. By using digital ion trap technology, the CID process and efficient fragmentation of parent ions can be realized by simply changing the trapping waveform amplitude, frequency, and the β values in the digital ion trap mass spectrometry. The technology and method are simple. It has potential use in ion trap mass spectrometry.