Superconducting Molecule Detectors Overcoming Fundamental Limits of Conventional Mass Spectrometry

Mass spectrometry (MS) is widely used in analytical chemistry for such fields as environmental science, life science, and space science. However, MS has two fundamental limits: the mass peak overlap of ions with the same mass/charge-number (m/z) ratio but different charge states (m/z overlap), and no ability to distinguish different neutral molecules (neutral loss).We show that these limits can be overcome by using superconducting detectors. Superconducting tunnel junctions (STJ) molecule etectors and superconducting nanostripline detectors (SSLDs) are suitable for MS because of the choice of fast ns response.