Optomechanical mass spectrometry

Marc Sansa (1) , Martial Defoort (1, 2) , Ariel Brenac (3) , Maxime Hermouet (1) , Louise Banniard (1) , Alexandre Fafin (1) , Marc Gely (1) , Christophe D. Masselon (4) , Ivan Favero (5) , Guillaume Jourdan (1) , Sébastien Hentz (1)

1 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information
2 TIMA-CDSI - Circuits, Devices and System Integration
3 SPINTEC - SPINtronique et TEchnologie des Composants
4 BGE - UMR S1038 - Laboratoire de Biologie à Grande Échelle
5 MPQ (UMR_7162) - Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques

Nanomechanical mass spectrometry has proven to be well suited for the analysis of high mass species such as viruses. Still, the use of one-dimensional devices such as vibrating beams forces a trade-off between analysis time and mass resolution. Complex readout schemes are also required to simultaneously monitor multiple resonance modes, which degrades resolution. These issues restrict nanomechanical MS to specific species. We demonstrate here single-particle mass spectrometry with nano-optomechanical resonators fabricated with a Very Large Scale Integration process. The unique motion sensitivity of optomechanics allows designs that are impervious to particle position, stiffness or shape, opening the way to the analysis of large aspect ratio biological objects of great significance such as viruses with a tail or fibrils. Compared to top-down beam resonators with electrical read-out and state-of-the-art mass resolution, we show a three-fold improvement in capture area with no resolution degradation, despite the use of a single resonance mode.

Domaines: Ingénierie biomédicale

Marc Sansa, Martial Defoort, Ariel Brenac, Maxime Hermouet, Louise Banniard, et al.. Optomechanical mass spectrometry. Nature Communications, 2020, 11 (1), pp.3781. ⟨10.1038/s41467-020-17592-9⟩. ⟨inserm-02946794⟩