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Superconducting Mass Spectrometry And Molecule Analysis

SuperMaMa is an EU FET-OPEN RIA (Research & Innovation Action) project that aims at breaking new scientific grounds for new technologies that shall boost the capabilities of mass spectrometry and optical spectroscopy. Here we specifically target singly charged and neutral high-mass proteins.

SUPERMAMA will develop, test and combine the first integrated superconducting nanowire array (SNWA) with advanced cryogenic onboard electronics in a largely re-modelled ESI-TOF-machine.

The development of a new generation of photocleavable tags shall allow the preparation of neutral protein beams from mass-selected ions in focused transverse high-power laser fields.

Photo-cleavage post-ionization of tagged proteins shall also be studied as a generic tool to decouple the volatilization from the charging process. This will enable the combination of a systematic analysis of neutral proteins in the gas phase with subsequent mass spectroscopy.

The combination of all techniques shall open new avenues for few-photon calorimetry and single-photon recoil spectroscopy. The calorimetry studies will explore the sensitivity of SNWA detection to molecular heat.

Two industrial and three academic research teams represent a highly interdisciplinary consortium of experts from

  • mass spectrometry
  • superconductor technology
  • integrated electronic design and engineering
  • synthetic chemistry
  • molecular beam physics and quantum optics

They work together towards their joint goal of advancing new molecular beam methods for

  • mass spectrometry and molecule analysis
  • optical spectroscopy on the few-photon level
  • quantum interferometry

in a complex domain that has remained unexplored so far.

This project receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 860713.