Patent ID: 7952070

Claim:
An apparatus for guiding ions, comprising: an interlaced set of electrodes that defines a resultant multipole ion channel, said interlaced set of electrodes being configured from a first set of electrodes and a second set of electrodes separately adapted to respectively define a first ion channel path and a second ion channel path, wherein to provide for said resultant multipole ion channel, said first set of electrodes and said second set of electrodes comprise configurations selected from: a pair of tripoles interlaced to form a hexapole, a pair of quadrupoles interlaced to form an octupole, a pair of hexapoles interlaced to form a dodecapole, a pair of octupoles interlaced to produce a hexadecapole, a quadrupole interlaced with a hexapole to provide a decapole, and an octapole interlaced with a quadrupole to provide for a dodecapole; and an RF voltage supply for applying RF voltages to at least some of the electrodes of said first and said second set of electrodes, said applied RF voltages being configured with a phase and amplitude so as to radially confine said ions within said first and said second ion channel paths.