Eur. Phys. J. D 60, 163-169 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2010-00147-y

IR laser desorption of oligonucleotides

A novel gas phase target for radiation damage studies

¹ Centre for Plasma Physics, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University Belfast, University Road, Belfast, BT7 1NN, N. Ireland, UK
² Medical Biology Centre, School of Biological Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, 97 Lisburn Road, Belfast, BT9 7BL, N. Ireland, UK
³ Andor Technology plc., 7 Millennium Way, Springvale Business Park, Belfast, BT12 7AL, N. Ireland, UK

Corresponding author: ^a tmerrigan01@qub.ac.uk

Received: 15 December 2009
Revised: 19 April 2010
Published online: 26 May 2010

Abstract

The desorption of oligonucleotides by 3 m laser irradiation has been studied by laser induced fluorescence imaging of the resulting gas phase plumes. Fitting of the plume data has been achieved by using a modified Maxwell Boltzmann distribution which incorporates a range of stream velocities. Spatial density profiles, velocities and temperature variation have been determined from these fits indicating that the oligonucleotide plume only achieves a partial thermal relaxation. This laser desorption technique may provide a means of overcoming the limited mass range of gas phase biomolecules available from thermal evaporation techniques.