The High-Efficiency Calculation and Analysis of Different Quadrupole Fields Based on the Method of Fundamental Solution.

ABSTRACT

The calculation and analysis of electric fields are indispensable steps in the design of mass spectrometry. In this work, an approach for this calculation was established based on the method of fundamental solution (MFS). It was proved to be much faster and more accurate than the other popular methods, and its optimum parameters were found for the calculation of different quadrupole fields. After this, quadrupole fields with round rods and different shielding covers were computed to investigate the impact of shielding covers, and a strategy of nonequilibrium allocation in the MFS was proposed to further improve the calculational efficiency. Moreover, through field calculation and mass analysis, the performances of the quadrupole fields with rectangular rods and different electrode cross section lengths were demonstrated, and their optimum sizes were also found. The proposed method and results of analysis in this work provided a highly efficient calculational approach and useful instruction for the design of a quadrupole mass filter.