A Miniaturized Atmospheric Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) Plasma System for Mass Spectrometry Analysis of Biosamples

This paper presents a novel system for generating dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma in a micro-device under atmospheric pressure environment for detecting volatile bio-sample with mass spectrometry. Biosamples can be directly analyzed using mass spectrometry without delicate sample preparation procedure. The proposed miniaturized DBD plasma generator can be operate with the power of as low as 0.42 W and can generate stable plasma for MS analysis. The temperature of the plasma generator is under 50 deg C under normal operation. Results indicate that the proposed system can successfully detect the solid samples of garlic slice and black tea, and a gas sample of a commercial perfume.