Methods and systems for detecting aerosol particles

A mass spectrometer system for detecting the composition of one or more of non-biological aerosol particles or biological aerosol particles including water bound to the surface of the particles, the system comprising:

• an aerosol beam generator to generate an aerosol beam of single particles;
• a single guide tube disposed downstream of the aerosol beam generator and configured to urge particles to flow nearabout the longitudinal axis of the guide tube;
• a continuous laser generator to generate a single continuous laser beam, in association with a data analysis system, configured to:
• hit each particle with the single continuous laser beam as each particle exits the guide tube and enters the continuous laser beam;
• and
• determine optical properties of each particle in association with one or more laser scattering devices and generate optical data;
• a pulse ionization laser generator triggered by the continuous laser when each particle enters the continuous laser beam, and configured to produce an IR laser pulse ionization beam to hit each particle and generate ionized fragments associated with each particle, wherein the continuous laser beam and the pulse ionization laser beam are disposed as overlapping beams;
• and
• a TOFMS detector to analyze the ionized fragments, and generate unique mass spectral data associated with each particle, wherein the data analysis system is further configured to:
• compile the optical data with unique mass spectral data associated with each particle using data fusion;
• and
• compare the compiled optical data with a training data set comprising of a knowledge base of known aerosol particles to predict composition.