Fig. 2.

Empirical resolving power curves (data points) compared to theory (solid lines) as a function of the ion mobility separation field (drift field) for three molecular ions (nominal m/z 322, 622, and 922). Error bars for each point are obtained from triplicate measurements. (A) The conditional resolving power (R_c) from eqn. (5) predicts the qualitative trends of the experimental observations, but quantitative correlation varies based on the ion system and gate width used. (B) The semi-empirical resolving power (R_SE) from eqn. (7) exhibits a more quantitative correlation than the conditional resolving power for all gate widths investigated in this study (100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 µs). For clarity, only the data for 100 and 500 μs gate widths are shown.