Waveboard Artifacts Generate Ghost Resonances Consistent with Equations for Predicting Ion Motion in Commercial Quadrupole Ion Traps

Abstract

Real-time experiments involving fragmentation of the precursor molecular ion of n-butylbenzene ( m/z 134) to produce product ions C7H+7 ( m/z 91) and C7H+8 ( m/z 92), were used to observe the motion of ions in a commercial quadrupole ion trap. Initially, ghost resonance peaks were observed for excitation of the precursor ion at qz values of 0.4 and 0.5 on the qz axis of the stability diagram. Further experiments involving the generation of two-dimensional contour plots confirmed that these ghost peaks, which were in agreement with mathematical equations describing the motion of ions in a quadrupole field, arose due to waveboard artifacts. Two-dimensional contour surface plots showed non-linear secular frequency canyons from a qz value of 0.5 to higher values corresponding with higher drive radio frequency (rf) voltages on the stability diagram. This observation confirmed that ions are subjected to non-linear effects in this mass scan range. The octapole and hexapole field lines were observed at qz values of 0.65 and 0.78, respectively.