Gas phase sorting of nanoparticles

We discuss Stark deflectometry of micro-modulated molecular beams for the enrichment of biomolecular isomers as well as single-wall carbon nanotubes and we demonstrate the working principle of this idea with fullerenes. The sorting is based on the species-dependent polarizability-to-mass ratio $\alpha \mathrm{/}m$. The device is compatible with a high molecular throughput, and the spatial micro-modulation of the beam permits to obtain a fine spatial resolution and a high sorting sensitivity.