Altering Conformational States of Dynamic Ion Populations using Traveling Wave Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations

With its capacity to store and translate ions across considerable distances and times, traveling wave structures for lossless ion manipulations (TW-SLIM) provide the foundation to expand the scope of ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) experiments. While promising, the dynamic electric fields and consequential ion-neutral collisions used to realize extensive degrees of separation have a considerable impact on the empirical results and the fundamental interpretation of observed arrival time distributions. Using a custom-designed set of TW-SLIM boards (∼9 m) coupled with a time-of-flight mass spectrometer (SLIM-ToF), we detail the capacity to systematically alter the gas-phase distribution of select peptide conformers. In addition to discussing the role charge-transfer may play in TW-SLIM experiments that occur at extended time scales, the ability of the SLIM-ToF to perform tandem IMS was leveraged to confirm that both the compact and elongated conformers of bradykinin