The modern mass spectrometer, an advanced analytical instrument, precisely measures the mass-to-charge ratios of ions, enabling detailed analysis of molecular composition and structure across a wide range of scientific fields.
As mentioned in an earlier article, J. J. Thomson constructed one of the earliest mass spectrometers and conducted the well-known experiment to determine the mass-to-charge ratio of an electron. Since then, different mass spectrometer designs have been developed. For instance, a typical modern Thermal Ionisation Mass Spectrometer (TIMS) consists of the following:
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- Ioniser, where the sample to be analysed is bombarded by electrons to form ions and ion fragments, which are then accelerated into the mass analyser.
- Mass analyser that utilises a magnetic field to deflect and separate the ions according to their mass-to-charge ratios (u/z). Note that the mass-to-charge ratios before the 1980s were quoted in u/e where e is the charge of an electron instead the number of charges, which is z.
- Detector that measures the abundance of ions with reference to their mass-to-charge ratios and converts the data into electrical signals.
The result is a plot of ion abundance versus mass-to-charge ratio, with the height of the peaks normalised to the most abundant ion in the spectrum.
