PIER Photon Science Colloquium: Nanomembranes for Proteomics: Nanomechanical Mass Sensing of Proteins

by Robert Blick (Universität Hamburg)

Friday 16 May 2014, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Berlin

CFEL, Bldg. 99 (DESY Hamburg)

Mechanical resonators realized on the nano-scale by now offer applications in mass-sensing of biomolecules with extraordinary sensitivity. The general idea is that perfect mechanical biosensors should be of extremely small size to achieve zepto-gram sensitivity in weighing single molecules similar to a balance. However, the small scale and long response time of weighing biomolecules with a cantilever restricts their usefulness as a high-throughput method.   In this presentation I will describe the feasibility and mass range of detection of a new mechanical approach for ion detection in time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The principle of which is that the impinging ion packets excite mechanical oscillations in a semiconductor nanomembrane, as demonstrated for angiotensin, bovine serum albumin (BSA), equimolar protein mixtures of insulin, BSA, Immunoglobulin G (IgG), and IgM.   We find an unprecedented mass range of operation of the nanomembrane detector.