Biopolymer mass spectrometer with cryogenic particle detectors

A novel type of biopolymer mass spectrometer is proposed for massive proteins, polypeptides and DNA-fragments by replacing standard ionizing detectors with cryogenic particle detectors. The detection efficiency in ionizing detectors decreases rapidly with increasing biopolymer mass owing to the biopolymerʹs decreasing velocity. Cryogenic particle detectors, however, record the total kinetic energy deposited by the accelerated biopolymer. In a given electric acceleration field, this kinetic energy is independent of mass and depends only on the biopolymerʹs charged state. Using the intrinsic properties of cryogenic particle detectors and their specific fabrication techniques, a mass spectrometer has been designed specifically for high-throughput DNA-sequencing. The calculated DNA-fragment separation rate would be increased by several orders of magnitude as compared to standard gel-electrophoresis DNA-sequencers.