Tandem mass spectrometry on a miniaturized laser desorption time-of-flight mass spectrometer

Tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) is a powerful and widely-used technique for identifying the molecular structure of organic constituents of a complex sample. Application of MS/MS to the study of unknown planetary samples on a remote space mission would contribute to our understanding of the origin, evolution, and distribution of extraterrestrial organics in our solar system. Here we report on the realization of MS/MS on a miniaturized laser desorption time-of-flight mass spectrometer (LD-TOF-MS), which is one of the most promising instrument types for future planetary missions. This achievement relies on two critical components: a curved-field reflectron and a pulsed-pin ion gate. These enable use of the complementary post-source decay (PSD) and laser-assisted collision induced dissociation (L-CID) MS/MS methods on diverse measurement targets with only modest investment in instrument resources such as volume and weight. MS/MS spectra of selected molecular targets in various organic standards exhibit excellent agreement when compared with results from a commercial, laboratory-scale TOF instrument, demonstrating the potential of this powerful technique in space and planetary environments.