High voltage pulser for ion shutters in ion mobility spectrometry based on an optocoupler

A novel high voltage pulser for an ion shutter used in drift-tube ion-mobility spectrometers is described. The simple design suitable for the in-house construction of these spectrometers relies on a special optocoupler to isolate the triggering circuitry from the high voltage at the ion shutter. The device was tested with an electrospray-ionization ion-mobility device with a 10 cm drift tube operated at 4 kV into which a standard test mixture of four tetraalkylamines was injected with a negative going gating pulse of about 50 V on top of 4 kV. A fall time of 15.7 µs and a rise time of 2.0 µs were determined for the pulse, which was adequate for the required injection pulse width of 450 µs. Resolving powers between 61 and 81 were determined for the four quaternary amines, which were found to be comparable to the performance obtained with a previously reported pulser circuitry of a different design used as a reference.