Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Brazing and Ion Source Integration of a High-Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry (FAIMS) Chip

Abstract

A high-field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS) chip based on printed circuit board (PCB) brazing has been fabricated. A needle-to-ring structure was used as the ion source. The ring electrode was formed by punching a 3 mm hole on the PCB and covering it with copper. The FAIMS chip was composed of two PCB boards connected by brazing. The peak value of a FAIMS spectrum was increased by reducing the ballast resistance and increasing the discharge voltage and gas velocity. When ethanol was used as the analyte, the limit of detection (LOD) is approximately 0.06 mg/L.

Keywords:

• Brazing
• high-field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS)
• ion source
• needle-to-ring structure
• printed circuit board (PCB)

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Number 61864001; the Natural Science Foundation of GuangXi under Grant Numbers 2017GXNSFGA198005 and 2017GXNSFAA198256; and the Foundation of Guangxi Key Laboratory of Automatic Detecting Technology and Instruments (Guilin University of Electronic Technology) under Grant Number YQ18113. We thank Alan Burns, PhD, from the Liwen Bianji, Edanz Group China (www.liwenbianji.cn/ac), for editing the English text of a draft of this manuscript.