Tofwerk Ag

Christian Tanner

Marc Gonin

Martin Tanner

Urs Rohner

Joel Kimmel

The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for determining a spectrum of a sample comprising one or more constituent parts on the basis of a time the one or more constituent parts require to undergo a physical process or chemical process. The spectrum is determined by dividing the sample by a modulation unit into assays for which the physical process or chemical process is initiated successively, timed according to a modulation pattern which is a function composed of N consecutive modulation functions with N being 2 or larger, by measuring with a detector in N consecutive cycles a time when the constituent parts of the sample have completed the physical process or chemical process, wherein in succession of the cycles, each cycle is assigned to a consecutive one of the modulation functions within the modulation pattern, wherein each cycle is started with an offset in time as compared to a start of the modulation function it is assigned to, wherein for each cycle, the offset is different, wherein the detector provides a detector signal providing information on when what number of constituent parts have completed the physical process or chemical process and wherein the detector signal has a detection time resolution, wherein at least one of the offsets has an absolute value different from zero, different from the detection time resolution and different from multiples of the detection time resolution, and by calculating a correlation of the detector signal and the modulation pattern with a calculation unit.

Method and an apparatus for determining a spectrum

An apparatus for mass spectrometry comprises a portion generator () for creating localized analyte portions in synchronization with trigger pulses, a transfer system () coupled to the portion generator () for transporting the localized analyte portions, a plasma ionizer unit () coupled to the transfer system () for atomizing, vaporizing and ionizing received analyte portions with plasma, a mass analyzer () coupled to the plasma ionizer unit () for analyzing received analyte portions, the mass analyzer () comprising at least one detector, and a data acquisition electronics () connected to the at least one detector for acquiring signals () generated by the at least one detector. The apparatus further includes a signal delay device () for receiving the trigger pulses () and delivering delayed signals () corresponding to the trigger pulses to account for a delay experienced by the particles to be analyzed between portion generation and detection.

Apparatus and method for mass spectrometry

A device for mass spectrometry comprises an ionization source, a mass analyzer fluidly coupled to the ionization source and an electronic data acquisition system for processing signals provided by the mass analyzer. The electronic data acquisition system comprises at least one analog-to-digital converter () producing digitized data from the signals obtained from the mass analyzer and a fast processing unit () receiving the digitized data from said analog-to-digital converter (). The fast processing () unit is programmed to continuously, in real time inspect the digitized data for events of interest measured by the mass spectrometer; and the electronic data acquisition system is programmed to forward () the digitized data representing mass spectra relating to events of interest for further analysis and to reject the digitized data representing mass spectra not relating to events of interest. The device allows for maintaining efficiency at high speed by eliminating all processing times (idle time in acquisition) for data segments that do not contain information about events.

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Olten, Switzerland

Christian Tanner