US Patent 11610768 Methods and apparatus for high speed mass spectrometry

A mass spectrometer system comprises: (a) an ion source; (b) a mass filter or a time-of-flight (TOF) ion separator configured to receive a stream of first-generation ions from the ion source; (c) an ion storage device having an ion inlet configured to receive a stream of filtered ions comprising a plurality of ion species from the mass filter or TOF separator and to accumulate the plurality of ion species therein; (d) an ion mobility cell having an ion inlet configured to receive an accumulated batch of ion species from the ion storage device and an ion outlet configured to release, one at a time, the individual ion species therefrom; and (e) a mass analyzer configured to receive and mass analyze each first-generation ion species or each fragment ion species generated by fragmentation or other reaction of the various first-generation ion species.