Microsystems and MALDI-MS

MALDI ionization mostly takes place in vacuum in spite of the recent development of atmospheric pressure ionization sources. Therefore, coupling a microfluidic system to MALDI-MS implies working under vacuum on the chip or performing the MS analysis off-line, i.e. introducing the microchip in the MALDI-MS once the fluidic operations are finished. Consequently, the first miniaturized developments for MALDI-MS analysis only concerned the 

Microsystems for MALDI-MS analysis can be divided into three groups microfabricated MALDI target plates, microsystems for off-line preparation of samples and microsystems that integrate both the sample preparation steps and the MALDI targets, with an on-line or off-line analysis of the samples. 

The combination of miniaturization to MS analysis finds two main fields of applications biological/biochemical analysis and organic chemistry. These are two important fields of applications of MS analysis. In both cases, by using microfabricated devices for MS analysis or by combining microfluidics to MS, novel capabilities are reached and new applications are found. 

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