Patent Document ID: 20050092913
Application ID: 10934329
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method of multi-turn time-of-flight mass analysis implemented using a multi-turn time-of-flight mass spectrometer for measuring and recording flight times, said mass spectrometer having a portion for producing ions in a pulsed manner, a multi-turn ion trajectory portion for causing the ions to travel in the same circulating trajectory many times, an ejection portion for ejecting the ions out of the trajectory portion, and an ion detection portion for detecting the ejected ions, the mass spectrometer being designed to eject the ions after the ions make many turns in the trajectory portion and to disperse the ions according to flight time, thus obtaining a mass spectrum, said method comprising the steps of: recording plural heterogeneous turn number spectra F 1 (t), F 2 (t),. .. , F q (t) containing plural ion peaks that might be different in number of turns, the spectra being obtained with different ion residence times taken from entry to departure; and finding a definable multi-correlation function G(t) from the heterogeneous turn number spectra, whereby reconstructing a single turn number spectrum; wherein said function G(t) is given by G ⁡ ( T ) = ∫ y l y u ⁢ H ⁡ [ F 1 ⁢ { N 1 ⁡ ( T ) × T + y } , F 2 ⁢ { N 2 ⁡ ( T ) × T + y } , … ⁢ , F r ⁢ { N r ⁡ ( T ) × T + y } ] ⁢ ⁢ ⅆ y where N j (T) (j=1, 2,. .. , q) is an integer determined by the time T taken for ions to make one turn in the circulating trajectory, y u is an upper limit value of a deviation time from one turn time T, y l , is a lower limit value of the deviation time from one turn time T, and H is a function determined by the value of F j {N j (t)×T+y} (j=1, 2,. .. , r).