| AVS 60th International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Applied Surface Science | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session AS+BI+IS-WeM |
| Session: | Ambient Ionization Mass Spectrometry |
| Presenter: | J.M. Symonds, Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Authors: | J.M. Symonds, Georgia Institute of Technology R.D. Gann, Georgia Institute of Technology F. Fernández, Georgia Institute of Technology T.M. Orlando, Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Microplasma ionization sources have been shown to be simple, effective tools for ambient mass spectrometry. Microplasmas have the advantages of being cheap to operate and manufacture, and require only modest gas flows and power sources. One of the challenges in ambient mass spectrometry is to produce sample ions from a wide variety of sample molecules without excessive fragmentation. Due to the chemically-specific nature of ionization, this remains a challenge for any new source. In this work we attempt to mitigate both of these problems by using high energy photons to ionize our samples. We have created a microplasma source that employs a mixture of neon and hydrogen to produce vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light which can ionize samples at atmospheric pressure. Traditionally, VUV light has been both difficult and expensive to produce, which limits its use for applications like ambient mass spectrometry. With the development of our microplasma VUV source, we are able to take advantage of the VUV photon’s capability as a broadly-applicable, low-fragmentation photoionization source, while retaining the low cost and simple operation which makes ambient mass spectrometry so appealing. By combining this ionization technique with laser desorption, we investigate the use of this source for mass spectrometric imaging.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under award number 0923179.