Shimadzu Corporation

Kazuyoshi Itoh

Kunihiko Ohkubo

Kiichi Fukui

The mass spectrometer according to the present invention includes a light source for emitting pulse light including a plurality of wavelengths; an ionizer for ionizing molecules of a sample by irradiating the light from the light source to the sample; and a mass analyzer for separating ions ionized in the ionizer according to their mass to charge ratios. For the light source, one including a plurality of ultrashort pulse laser sources each emitting a wavelength different from others, and one emitting ultrashort pulse light including plural wavelengths ranging from the visible region to the infrared region generated by dispersing an ultrashort pulse light with continuous (white) spectrum can be used. Pulse lights having plural wavelengths ranging from near infrared to the ultraviolet region respectively share the role; i.e., one of them vaporizes the sample without fragmenting it, and another ionizes the vaporized sample with the single-photon process or two-photon (or multi-photon) process. This enables ionization of protein complexes as a whole contained in the sample, and enables mass analyses of them.

Mass spectrometer for biological samples

The present invention proposes a method of and system for analyzing samples (particularly, bio-samples), wherein the continuous spectrum white light pulse generated from an ultra-short optical pulse is used in a simple manner. By a system according to the invention, continuous spectrum white light pulses generated by converging ultra-short optical pulses on a point in a transparent substanceare dispersed into a spectrum of light by a dispersing elementand a plurality of objective wavelength components are separately selected by small reflection mirrorsmasked mirrors or the like. The selected objective wavelength components are combined by the dispersing elementinto a composite optical pulse containing the objective wavelength components. The composite optical pulse is irradiated onto the bio-sampleor other samples, whereby only the desired fluorescent substances are excited by the objective wavelength components corresponding to them. The selected objective wavelength components may preferably have different light path lengths. By this construction, the component optical pulses corresponding to the objective wavelengths in the composite optical pulse are separated from each other, so that the noise due to the interference of different wavelength components is prevented.

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Hyogo-ken, Japan

Kazuyoshi Itoh