Mass-selective trapping of pulsed charged particle beams

The phase-space method is used to evaluate the mass-selective ion confinement properties of the radio-frequency (rf) quadrupole ion trap with phase-synchronized switching-on of the driving rf field for pulsed ion injection from an external source. The results are of interest for on-line investigations of both short-lived isotopes and stable highly charged ions. In particular, singly charged ions with an energy of 10 eV and a mass in the neighborhood of 100 amu, injected along the gap or through an aperture on one of the electrodes, are considered. Mass-selective storage of the injected ions is possible for any trap operation point within the stability region by allowing a field-free drift distance before ion injection. It is shown that after appropriate scaling the results apply to the trapping of any pulsed beam of charged particles.