The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 02, 2006
Filed:
Mar. 09, 2004
Iouri Kalinitchenko, Mulgrave, AU;
Iouri Kalinitchenko, Mulgrave, AU;
Varian Australia PTY LTD, Mulgrave, AU;
Abstract
A mass spectrometer and method of mass spectrometry in which polyatomic and doubly charged ion interferences are attenuated by establishing an electron population through which a beam of particles containing elemental sample ions and the interfering ions is passed such that the interfering ions preferentially undergo ion-electron recombination and thus dissociation to remove a significant number of the interfering ions. Means (or) for providing a population of electrons (or) in an ICP-MS () may comprise a magnetic field means such as an electric coil, or an electron generating device. The population of electrons has an electron number density (>10cmto 10cm), a free electron energy (>0.01 eV to <5 eV) in a region at a low pressure (<10 Torr), such that for a predetermined path length (1–4 cm) of the ions through the electron population, the interfering ions will preferentially be attenuated by the dissociative recombination process. The ion beam () then passes to a mass analyser () and ions which have been separated according to their mass-to-charge ratio are detected by ion detector ().