Our Tech

​SPion® defines a new category of ion optical components that did not exist before. Similar to optical fibers that contain and guide photons in a flexible path, SPion® contains and guides ions in a flexible path. 

SPion® enables making totally new mass spectrometry technologies —like a SUPER Mass Spec™, surgical probes, multimodal imaging stations, and fully-automated high throughput workflows.

a flexible one. 

SPion® is an ion guide,

What makes SPion® truly unique is its flexibility —it is the world's first and only flexible ion guide. Aside from flexibility, SPion® has a number of additional unique features: the ion transfer is lossless in a wide range of m/z, there is no theoretical limit on how long SPion® can be, and the ion transfer is extremely fast —close to the speed of sound. 

Ion transfer mechanism

The electrodes inside SPion® allow for the application of radio frequency voltages to create electric fields that prevent ions (in a wide m/z range) from contacting the inner wall during transmission at sub-ambient pressures. In a sense, ions glide inside SPion® at the speed of sound. 

Interested in learning more? 

Here are a technical note.