Comparison of biomolecule desorption yields for low and high energy primary ions

Abstract Ion induced desorption yields of molecular ions from samples of cesium iodide, glycylglcine, ergosterol, bleomycin and a trinucleoside diphosphate have been studied using primary beams of 54 MeV 63Cu9+ and 3 keV 133Cs+. Mass analysis was performed with a time-of-flight technique. Each sample was studied with the same spectrometer for both low and high energy primary ions and without opening of the vacuum chamber in between the measurements. The results show that fast heavy ions give larger yields for all samples studied and that the yield ratios for high to low energy desorption increase with the mass of the sample molecule.