Collision‐induced dissociation in a tandem time‐of‐flight mass spectrometer with two single‐stage reflectrons

A tandem time‐of‐flight mass spectrometer was developed to be used for the study of collision‐induced dissociation (CID) products of peptides and small proteins. The instrument incorporates two single‐stage reflectrons, the first to energy focus the precursor ions to be fragmented and the second to both energy focus and disperse the product ions formed in the collision cell. Single‐stage rather than two‐stage reflectrons were used because the overall transmission is higher, interferences with grid wire fields are minimized and the mass calibration of product ion spectra is exactly linear with time. The CID product ion spectra of rhodamine and several peptides were acquired and found to exhibit very similar fragmentation patterns to those acquired in the B/E linked scan mode of a magnetic sector mass spectrometer.