Chip-Scale Quadrupole Mass Filters for Portable Mass Spectrometry

We report the design, fabrication, and characterization of a new class of chip-scale quadrupole mass filter (QMF). The devices are completely batch fabricated using a wafer-scale process that integrates the quadrupole electrodes, ion optics, and housing into a single monolithic block. This process eliminates the electrode-to-housing misalignments inherent in other QMFs and enables the implementation of complex device architectures. To achieve the reported integration, 1 mm × 1 mm square electrodes of heavily doped silicon were utilized, resulting in quadrupoles with an effective aperture radius of 0.707 mm and a length of 30 mm. Mass filtering was demonstrated with this unconventional device showing a mass range of 650 amu and a resolution of ~30 at a drive frequency of 1.8 MHz. When operated in the second stability region at 2.0 MHz and a mass range of 50 amu, a peak width of 0.3 amu was achieved at mass 28, showing a resolution of ~90. This paper introduces operation in the second stability region as a reliable method for turning QMFs with less than ideal electrode geometries into high-performance devices.