Orbitrap principle

In principle, it would be possible to perform multistage mass spectrometry like in an ICR analyzer although with no gas CID would of course not be possible, but other dissociation methods could be employed. There might, however, be technical issues. At the time of writing, fragmentation is performed in the linear QIT preceeding the orbitrap in Thermo Fischer Scientific s instrument. Both pulsed and continuous ion sources can be employed. There are several ion sources that can be employed with Thermo Fischer Scientific s orbitrap. 

An entirely new principle of the ion-trap mass spectrometers is the Orbitrap with a coaxial inner spindle-shaped electrode in an outer barrel-like electrode. The peripheral injected ions move due to their electrostatic attraction to the inner electrode on orbits around and swing simultaneously along the electrode. The frequency of these harmonic oscillations is inversely proportional to the square root of mJz. The detected signals are induced by the frequency of these swings and resulted... 

Fourier Transform Mass Spectrometer (FTMS) Fourier transformation (FT) of time-dependent image from the detector to m/z intensity is utilized for two types of mass spectrometers ion cyclotron resonance (ICR) and Orbitrap. FTICR mass spectrometers operate based on the ion cyclotron resonance principle ions in a magnetic field (B) move in circular orbits at frequencies (ft>c) characteristic of their m/z values as shown below (Marshall et al., 1998,2002) ... 

Linear Ion Trap-Orbitrap Mass Spectrometer A recent addition to the family of hybrid tandem mass spectrometers is a linear ion trap (LTQ)-orbitrap mass spectrometer [69,70]. Conceptually, this instrument is similar to the LTQ/FT-ICR tandem mass spectrometer discussed above but uses an orbitrap in place of a Penning trap, thus avoiding the complexity and cost of a superconducting magnet. The working principle of an orbitrap was described in Section 3.9 [71,72]. A schematic diagram of the LTQ/orbitrap mass spectrometer is shown in Figure 4.14. This hybrid tandem mass spectrometer consists of an... 

Whereas the terms MALDI and ESI only describe the way of ionization, the separation of generated polymers ions basically occurs in a mass spectrometer. This could be performed using single TOP or combination of quadmpole-TOF (Q-TOF) devices, but also in ion trap, Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) - or Orbitrap - mass spectrometers. Since TOF and Q-TOF analyzers are the most frequently used devices in MALDI MS, it seems to be necessary to have a closer look at the TOF principle as well. 

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