Enhanced Resolving Power by Moving Field Ion Mobility Spectrometry.

Ion mobility spectrometry is a powerful detection method widely used in various applications. Particularly in field applications, ion mobility spectrometers (IMSs) are useful because of their extremely low detection limits at short measuring periods and their compact and robust design. However, especially small IMSs suffer from the consequences of low resolving power when compared to laboratory systems. Therefore, in this paper, we present a new approach to increase the resolving power of a drift time IMS without employing higher drift voltages and bulky power supplies. The so-called moving field IMS (MOF-IMS) presented here allows a more effective use of the available voltage because of a segmented drift region where only a small part is supplied with voltage. Even with the basic version of an MOF-IMS presented here, it was possible to increase the resolving power by 60% from 60 to 95 without increasing the required drift voltage.