ISSN:
1089-7623
Source:
AIP Digital Archive
Topics:
Physics
,
Electrical Engineering, Measurement and Control Technology
Notes:
We propose a new method to study metastable fragmentation of clusters in a reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer. This method does not require any modification of the standard apparatus. No preselection of parents is needed: all fragmentation reactions can be analyzed by recording a few numbers of spectra obtained by changing only the repelling voltage of the reflectron Vref. The evolution of a peak as a function of 1/Vref is a straight line. The extrapolation of this line at 1/Vref=0 gives the mass of the parent M and its slope gives the mass of the fragment m: the whole decay channel set for all parents can be determined unambiguously. The intensity of a peak is stable when scanning Vref: rather accurate branching ratios can be determined. Application to the fragmentation of clusters containing Ag, H2O, and SF6 is presented. Masses are measured to an accuracy of about 0.5%, allowing for example to study independently the dissociation channels involving the two natural isotopes of silver, 107Ag and 109Ag. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1150573
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