Background
The term "soft laser desorption" has not been widely used by the mass spectrometry community, which in most cases uses matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) to indicate soft laser desorption ionization that is aided by a separate matrix compound. The term soft laser desorption was used most notably by the Nobel Foundation in public information released in conjunction with the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Koichi Tanaka was awarded 1/4 of the prize for his use of a mixture of cobalt nanoparticles and glycerol in what he called the “ultra fine metal plus liquid matrix method” of laser desorption ionization. With this approach, he was able to demonstrate the soft ionization of proteins. The MALDI technique was demonstrated (and the name coined) in 1985 by Michael Karas, Doris Bachmann, and Franz Hillenkamp, but ionization of proteins by MALDI was not reported until 1988, immediately after Tanaka's results were reported.
Some have argued that Karas and Hillenkamp were more deserving of the Nobel Prize than Tanaka because their crystalline matrix method is much more widely used than Tanaka's liquid matrix. Countering this argument is the fact that Tanaka was the first to use a 337 nm nitrogen laser while Karas and Hillenkamp were using a 266 nm Nd:YAG laser. The "modern" MALDI approach came into being several years after the first soft laser desorption of proteins was demonstrated.
The term soft laser desorption is now used to refer to MALDI as well as "matrix free" methods for laser desorption ionization with minimal fragmentation.
Read more about this topic: Soft Laser Desorption
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