The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) is designing, fabricating and testing a small, high resolution, time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOFMS) suitable for biomedical applications requiring lightweight, low-powered and portable instrumentation. This instrument can be used to identify solids, liquids and gases of both chemical and biological origins to quantify the habitat environment and support biomedical research and medical care. The virtue of the JHU/APL TOFMS technology presented here, resides in the promise for a small, lightweight, low- power, device that can be used continuously with advanced signal processing diagnostics. To date, JHU/APL has demonstrated mass capability beyond 10,000 Atomic Mass Units in a very small, low power prototype for biological analysis. The JHU/APL approach, described in this paper, is to design the instrument for both wide mass range and fine mass resolution by the use of electronic control in a tandem mass spectrometer instrument. In this paper we will outline the principle behind the operation of the APL's miniaturized TOFMS system and present examples of the analysis of chemical and biological substances. In addition, we will also describe a novel method for the collection of airborne particles for TOFMS analysis suitable for automated collection and analysis applications.

Date Published: 1 May 1998
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 3253, Biomedical Sensing and Imaging Technologies, (1 May 1998); doi: 10.1117/12.308045

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3253:
Biomedical Sensing and Imaging Technologies
Robert A. Lieberman; Tuan Vo-Dinh, Editor(s)