Controlled beams of cryo-cooled protein-like nanoparticles
Abstract
We report a cryogenic buffer-gas-cell-aerodynamic-lens-stack setup that enables the generation of shock-frozen, dense, and controllable beams of various nanoparticles in the gas phase, including small and low-density species such as isolated proteins. We demonstrate characterization of the setup using strong-field ionization combined with velocity-map imaging, allowing the unambiguous detection of nanoparticles in the protein-size range and full reconstruction of the particle beams including determination of particle flux and number density. The generation and characterization workflow presented here provides a valuable approach for protein-like sample preparation and delivery in single-particle diffractive imaging, microscopy, and low-temperature nanoscience.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.09090,
title = {Controlled beams of cryo-cooled protein-like nanoparticles},
author = {Jingxuan He and Karol Długołecki and Hubertus Bromberger and Amit K. Samanta and Jochen Küpper},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.09090},
year = {2026}
}