A high-frequency
mass spectrometer in which the
cyclotron motion of ions, having different mass/charge ratios, in a constant magnetic field is excited essentially simultaneously and coherently by a pulse or a radio-frequency electric field applied perpendicular to the magnetic field. The excited
cyclotron motion of the ions is subsequently detected on so-called receiver plates as a time domain signal that contains all the
cyclotron frequencies that have been excited. Fourier
transformation of the time domain signal results in the frequency domain
FT-ICR signal which, on the basis of the inverse proportionality between frequency and the mass/charge ratio, can be converted into a
mass spectrum. The term is sometimes contracted to Fourier transform
mass spectrometer
(
FT-MS).
Source:
PAC, 1991, 63, 1541
(Recommendations for nomenclature and symbolism for mass spectroscopy (including an appendix of terms used in vacuum technology). (Recommendations 1991))
on page 1545