Back

A Nature-Inspired Ion Trap for Parallel Manipulation of Ions on a Massive Scale

Krutchinsky, A. N.; Chait, B. T.

2025-12-03 biophysics
10.1101/2025.08.21.671534 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Parallelization has revolutionized computing and DNA sequencing but remains largely unexploited in mass spectrometry (MS), which typically analyzes ions sequentially. We introduce a nature-inspired ion trap (MultiQ-IT) that enables massively parallel MS. The device comprises a cubic array of small quadrupoles forming multiple ion entry and exit ports, allowing >10 ions to be confined and manipulated simultaneously. This architecture enables selective depletion of singly charged ions in real time, greatly improving signal-to-noise ratios and detection sensitivity. The trap also functions as a parallel ion splitter, transmitting ions into multiple m/z-specific beams. We demonstrate scalable ion throughput, real-time charge discrimination, and parallel beam separation, suggesting a path toward truly parallel MS. Our results offer a foundation for next-generation, high-throughput proteomic and metabolomic analyses.

Matching journals

The top 3 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.