Quadrupole mass spectrometer

Abstract

A table () for relating an appropriate DC bias voltage to each of a plurality of selectable scan speeds is stored beforehand in an auto-tuning data memory section (). In an auto-tuning operation, a controller () determines the DC bias voltage corresponding to each scan speed by referring to the table () and fixes the output of an ion-drawing voltage generator () at that voltage. Subsequently, while changing the voltages applied to relevant sections such as an ion optical system (), the controller () finds voltage conditions under which the detection signal is maximized. The conditions thus found are stored in an auto-tuning result data (). In an analysis of a target sample, a DC bias voltage corresponding to a scan speed specified by an operator is obtained from the DC bias voltage table (), and the optimal conditions for this voltage are obtained from the auto-tuning result data (). Based on these items of information, conditions for the scan measurement are determined. This method prevents the deterioration in detection sensitivity, which will otherwise take place if the scan measurement is performed at a high scan speed.