Study of an atmospheric pressure microplasma source for mass spectrometry

• Applicant: Dr. Manuela Miclea
• Subject Area: Analytical Chemistry
• Term: from 2004 to 2006
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5426423

This project will investigate the implementation of a micro hollow cathode discharge as ion source for mass spectrometry. First the plasma will be optimized in respect to its design and hereby different production techniques for the structures will be taken into account. Those fabricated discharges will be characterized in respect to electron density, gas temperature, gas velocity and density of excited atoms for stationary conditions as well as for a plasma-jet configuration. The developed experimental procedures are unique and will also offer the possibility to measure plasma parameters in other small discharges with hardly accessible parameters. Besides the basic investigations, the coupling of the plasma with a mass spectrometer as ionization source is envisaged. This task would give the possibility to replace big plasma devices like inductively coupled plasma or microwave induced plasma by the miniaturized systems following the lab-on-a-chip trend in analytical spectrometry. The analysis of solid, liquid and gaseous samples in very small concentration will be proved by this coupling. The whole investigations proposed here give the possibility to enable new application fields for the micro hollow cathode discharge, besides the already known one like excimer source, decomposition of exhaust gases, surface modification and source of metastable spin polarized He atoms.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants