Dipole excitation of ions in linear radio frequency quadrupole ion traps with added multipole fields

Ion motion with auxiliary dipole excitation and collisional damping in a linear radiofrequency quadrupole ion trap incorporating small amounts of even higher order multipoles is studied analytically. The ion motion is modeled in a pseudopotential that is mostly quadratic with small amounts of higher spatial harmonics. Ion motion along x and y axes is characterized by two uncoupled forced and damped anharmonic oscillator equations. A multiple time scales method is used to solve the equations of motion of ions with a first order perturbation Correction. Analytical relations between the oscillation amplitudes at steady state (the stationary amplitudes) and excitation frequency are calculated. The frequency response Curves show that in some cases bistable behavior might be obtained, i.e., there are two stable stationary amplitudes for a given excitation frequency. Crown Copyright (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.