Laser-Induced Acoustic Desorption of Natural and Functionalized Biochromophores

Author(s)
Ugur Sezer, Lisa Woerner, Johannes Horak, Lukas Felix, Jens Tüxen, Christoph Goetz, Alipasha Vaziri, Marcel Mayor, Markus Arndt
Abstract

Laser-induced acoustic desorption (LIAD) has recently been established as a tool for analytical chemistry. It is capable of launching intact, neutral, or low charged molecules into a high vacuum environment. This makes it ideally suited to mass spectrometry. LIAD can be used with fragile biomolecules and very massive compounds alike. Here, we apply LIAD time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) to the natural biochromophores chlorophyll, hemin, bilirubin, and biliverdin and to high mass fluoroalkyl-functionalized porphyrins. We characterize the variation in the molecular fragmentation patterns as a function of the desorption and the VUV postionization laser intensity. We find that LIAD can produce molecular beams an order of magnitude slower than matrix-assisted laser desorption (MALD), although this depends on the substrate material. Using titanium foils we observe a most probable velocity of 20 m/s for functionalized molecules with a mass m = 10 000 Da.

Organisation(s)
Quantum Optics, Quantum Nanophysics and Quantum Information, Department of Structural and Computational Biology
External organisation(s)
Universität Basel, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
Journal
Analytical Chemistry
Volume
87
Pages
5614-5619
No. of pages
6
ISSN
0003-2700
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.5b00601
Publication date
06-2015
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103016 Laser physics, 104002 Analytical chemistry
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Analytical Chemistry
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/e98ab944-df1e-4bb0-b875-58eb13068b1f