Numerical analysis of pulsed extraction of ions from a 16-Pole / 16-Wire ion trap for time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Multipole radiofrequency ion traps are versatile tools for trapping and manipulating ions. The extraction of ions from such a trap leads to broad time-of-flight (ToF) distributions, which make it incompatible with ToF mass spectrometry. In this work, we conducted numerical simulations of biomolecular ions stored in 16-pole and 16-wire ion traps to analyze their extraction characteristics. We show that the ions extracted from a wire trap with a simple upgrade exhibit ToF distributions two orders of magnitude narrower than that typically results from conventional ion traps. Further, in the upgraded design, the ions can be confined within a much narrower region, which, together with higher optical access of the wire trap configuration, makes it compatible with fluorescence spectroscopy measurements.