Hannover 2010 – scientific programme

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MS: Fachverband Massenspektrometrie

MS 2: Speicherringe und neue Entwicklungen

MS 2.4: Talk

Monday, March 8, 2010, 17:45–18:00, F 428

Exploring superconducting detectors for neutral nanoparticles — •Michele Sclafani¹, Markus Marksteiner¹, Philipp Haslinger¹, Hendrik Hulbricht¹, Markus Arndt¹, Alexander Divochiy², Alexander Korneev², and Gregory Gol'tsman² — ¹Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Vienna, Austria — ²Department of Physics, Moscow State Pedagogical University, M. Pirogovskaya Street 1, Moscow 119992, Russia

We present the first experimental evidence for the successful detection of neutral nanoparticle beams using Superconducting Single Photon Detectors (SSPD). The detection process relies on the formation of an impact-induced hot spot on a nanostructured superconducting NbN film. When the critical current density is exceeded a measurable resistance builds up across the film and a short voltage peak (20 ns) can be measured. We test the detector with a beam of laser-desorbed and jet-cooled biomolecules. For tryptophan (204 Da) and gramicidin (1884 Da) the arrival time distributions are in agreement with those observed with in VUV-postionization/time-of-flight mass spectrometry. We also observe signals for larger biological molecules such as insulin (ca. 6 kDa), myoglobin (ca. 17 kDa) and hemoglobin (ca. 64 kDa), which still have to be confirmed by independent methods, as photo-ionization does not succeed for these species. We suggest that further developments can turn SSPD chips into devices that may help us overcome current mass limitations in a variety of beam experiments with neutral molecules. We also discuss the options for matter wave interferometry to characterize and finally use SSPD detectors.