The invention discloses a new interface with non-circular conductance
limit aperture(s) useful for effective transmission of non-circular ion
beams between stages with different gas pressure. In particular, the
invention provides an improved coupling of field asymmetric waveform ion
mobility spectrometry (FAIMS) analyzers of planar or side-to-side
geometry to downstream stages such as mass spectrometry or ion mobility
spectrometry. In this case, the non-circular aperture is rectangular;
other geometries may be optimum in other applications. In the preferred
embodiment, the non-circular aperture interface is followed by an
electrodynamic ion funnel that may focus wide ion beams of any shape into
tight circular beams with virtually no losses. The jet disrupter element
of the funnel may also have a non-circular geometry, matching the shape
of arriving ion beam. The improved sensitivity of planar FAIMS/MS has
been demonstrated in experiments using a non-contiguous elongated
aperture but other embodiments (e.g., with a contiguous slit aperture)
may be preferable, especially in conjunction with an ion funnel operated
at high pressures.