Nanophotonic ion sources

Abstract

Interactions between laser radiation and photonic structures at elevated laser intensities give rise to the production of positive and negative ions from adsorbates. These new types of ion sources exhibit properties that are significantly different from conventional laser desorption ionization sources. In this contribution comparisons are made between matrixassisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) of biomolecules with ion production from laser-induced silicon microcolumn arrays (LISMA) and nanopost arrays (NAPA). The sharp increase of ion yields from the nanophotonic ion sources follow a power law behavior with an exponent of up to n ≈ 7, whereas in the case of MALDI n ≈ 5. T he strong field enhancement in the vicinit y of the columns and posts scales with their aspect ratio. Slender high aspect ratio posts show reduced laser fluence threshold for ionization. Posts with diameters at or below the thermal diffusion length demonstrate high surface temperatures due to the radial confinement of the deposited energy. As a consequence enhanced fragmentation, i.e., lower survival yield of the molecular ions is observed. The origin of protons in the ionization of adsorbates was identified as the entrapped residues of the solvent. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.