Measuring Anomalous Heating in a Planar Ion Trap with Variable Ion-Surface Separation.

Cold ions trapped in the vicinity of conductive surfaces experience heating of their oscillatory motion. Typically, the rate of this heating is orders of magnitude larger than expected from electric field fluctuations due to thermal motion of electrons in the conductors. This effect, known as anomalous heating, is not fully understood.

Initial experimental characterization of a new ultra-high resolution FTICR cell with dynamic harmonization.

A new Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) cell based on completely new principles of formation of the effective electric potential distribution in Penning type traps, Boldin and Nikolaev (Proceedings of the 58th ASMS Conference, 2010), Boldin and Nikolaev (Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom 25:122-126, 2011) is constructed and tested experimentally. Its operation is based on the concept of electric potential space-averaging via charged particle cyclotron motion. Such an averaging process permits an effective electric force distribution in the entire volume of a cylindrical Penning trap to be equal to its distribution in the field created by hyperbolic electrodes in an ideal Penning trap.

Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance cell with dynamic harmonization of the electric field in the whole volume by shaping of the excitation and detection electrode assembly.

A new principle of formation of the effective electric field distribution in a Penning trap is presented. It is based on the concept of electric potential space averaging via charged particle cyclotron motion. The method of making hyperbolic-type field distribution in the whole volume of a cylindrical Penning trap is developed on the basis of this new principal.

Theory of peak coalescence in Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry.

Peak coalescence, i.e. the merging of two close peaks in a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrum at a high number of ions, plays an important role in various FTICR experiments.

Misphasing of ion motion in quadratic potential induced by space-periodic disturbance.

An ideally quadratic potential used in different types of ion mass analyzer such as Paul trap, Kingdon trap and quadratic field reflectron may be space-periodically disturbed due to inaccuracy of fabrication and design features. If ion motion in such devices is computer-simulated, disturbances of potential may be caused by the peculiarity of the computation method. The problem investigated in this work is the effect that weak space-periodic disturbance of a quadratic potential takes on the ion motion in such a potential.