Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer (TOF MS)

Time-of-flight mass spectrometers (TOF MS) do exactly what their name suggests: determine an ion’s mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) based on how long it takes for that ion to travel down the instrument’s “flight tube” and reach the detector. Frequently, though not exclusively coupled to matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) sources, TOF MS come in a variety of configurations, including a single-stage time-of-flight mass spectrometer, a multi-stage TOF/TOF, and even a hybrid quadrupole-TOF (Q-TOF) instrument; the latter two enable MS/MS applications. Often, time-of-flight mass spectrometers contain two detectors: a linear detector at the end of the flight tube, and a “reflector” detector, which captures ions that were redirected back towards the source by a “reflectron.” The reflectron serves two purposes: correcting for discrepancies in initial kinetic energy of identically sized molecules (which would cause them to reach the detector at different times and thus, have different apparent m/z values) and lengthening the flight path, improving resolution.

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