Patent Document ID: 20130013274
Application ID: 13590748
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for analyzing and identifying ions in a mass spectrometer comprising: ionizing a sample ion located within an analyzer cell found in the mass spectrometer; trapping substantially all ions of a given charge sign formed within the analyzer cell during and after the ionization period and causing them to move orbitally at an angular frequency by subjecting them to the combined action of static electric fields and a unidirectional magnetic field; exciting all ions trapped within the cell that lie within a range of mass-to-charge ratios by applying a broad-band exciting electric field to the analyzer cell; converting the excited ion cyclotron motion of ions falling within the range of mass-to-charge ratios into a time domain analog signal; digitizing said analog signal in the time domain to form a digital signal; Fourier transforming the digital signal into a ion phase representation of the domain signal; and identifying the elemental compositions of the sample ion.