Plasma ionization source for atmospheric pressure mass spectrometry imaging using near-field optical laser ablation.

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) at ambient pressures with submicrometer resolution is challenging, due to the very low amount of material available for mass spectrometric analysis. In this work, we present the development and characterization of a method for MSI based on pulsed laser ablation via a scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) aperture tip. SNOM allows laser ablation of material from surfaces with submicrometer spatial resolution, which can be ionized for further chemical analysis with MS.

Real-time breath analysis with active capillary plasma ionization-ambient mass spectrometry.

On-line analysis of exhaled human breath is a growing area in analytical science, for applications such as fast and non-invasive medical diagnosis and monitoring. In this work, we present a novel approach based on ambient ionization of compounds in breath and subsequent real-time mass spectrometric analysis. We introduce a plasma ionization source for this purpose, which has no need for additional gases, is very small, and is easily interfaced with virtually any commercial atmospheric pressure ionization mass spectrometer (API-MS) without major modifications.

Active capillary plasma source for ambient mass spectrometry.

Rationale: Imaging mass spectrometry with high spatial resolution has become a rapidly developing area of mass spectrometric research. Many scientific and industrial problems deal with mass spectrometric analysis at ambient pressures. This requires efficient transport and ionization of small amounts of substance.