TY - JOUR A1 - Michalik-Onichimowska, Aleksandra A1 - Beitz, T. A1 - Panne, Ulrich A1 - Löhmannsröben, H.-G. A1 - Riedel, Jens T1 - Laser ionization ion mobility spectrometric interrogation of acoustically levitated droplets N2 - Acoustically levitated droplets have been suggested as compartmentalized, yet wall-less microreactors for high-throughput reaction optimization purposes. The absence of walls is envisioned to simplify up-scaling of the optimized reaction conditions found in the microliter volumes. A consequent pursuance of high-throughput chemistry calls for a fast, robust and sensitive analysis suited for online interrogation. For reaction optimization, targeted Analysis with relatively low sensitivity suffices, while a fast, robust and automated sampling is paramount. To follow this approach, in this contribution, a direct coupling of levitated droplets to a homebuilt ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) is presented. The sampling, Transfer to the gas phase, as well as the ionization are all performed by a single exposure of the sampling volume to the resonant output of a mid-IR laser. Once formed, the nascent spatially and temporally evolving analyte ion cloud needs to be guided out of the acoustically confined trap into the inlet of the ion mobility spectrometer. Since the IMS is operated at ambient pressure, no fluid dynamic along a pressure Gradient can be employed. Instead, the transfer is achieved by the electrostatic potential gradient inside a dual ring electrode ion optics, guiding the analyte ion cloud into the first stage of the IMS linear drift tube accelerator. The design of the appropriate atmospheric pressure ion optics is based on the original vacuum ion optics design of Wiley and McLaren. The obtained experimental results nicely coincide with ion trajectory calculations based on a collisional model. KW - Ambient pressure laser ionization KW - Ionmobility spectrometry KW - Acoustic levitation KW - ion optics PY - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-019-02167-5 VL - 411 IS - 30 SP - 8053 EP - 8061 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg AN - OPUS4-50132 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -