Patent ID: 9543133
Date: 2017-01-10
CPC Classifications: H01J

Claim:
1. Method for operating a time-of-flight mass spectrometer comprising an ion source, a pulser, a drift region, a reflector, an ion detector with a secondary electron multiplier, a digitization unit, and a data memory, to form a sum spectrum, comprising the steps of: pulsing ions into the drift region of the time-of-flight mass spectrometer; sampling the electron current which is generated by the ion current in the secondary electron multiplier of the ion detector at the end of the drift region to thereby acquire an individual spectrum; determining for at least one ion current peak in the individual spectrum, a position of the ion current peak on a flight time scale and a total intensity; selecting entries in an addition time raster of the sum spectrum, which are adjacent to the position of the ion current peak; and in an arithmetic unit that has access to the data memory, adding portions of the total intensity of the ion current peak to the selected entries to increase the time-of-flight resolution of the mass spectrometer, wherein more of the total intensity is added to the entries which are closer to the position of the ion current peak than is added to the entries which are further away from the position of the ion current peak.