Tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometry with non-uniform sampling

摘要

A method of multiplexed mass spectral analysis comprises sampling a subset of multiple ion sources; forming a distinct, sparse and repetitive spectral signal with limited signal overlapping between sampled spectra from different ion sources; recording a mass spectrum with at least one detector; repeating the steps of sampling, forming and spectral recording while varying the ion source subsets in a non-redundant fashion where combinations of any two simultaneously sampled ion sources are unique and any particular ion source is sampled multiple times; and decoding signals from all individual ion sources by correlating encoded signal with ion sources sampling. Alternatively, non-redundant sampling may be arranged from multiple ion flows multiplexed downstream from a single ion source, multiple ion packets generated by multiple pulsed converters, or multiple ion packets generated by a single pulsed converter and separated in time by ion mass to charge ratio. The encoding step may be adjusted based on a sparseness of the acquired spectra. Multiplexed tandem TOF-TOF mass spectrometry using non-redundant encoding is also disclosed.