Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry and its Applications

The resurgence of time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) has had its origin in the simplicity of construction and application of such instruments together with the high transmission and the great increase in resolution that has been achieved. The instrument lends itself naturally to a coupling with pulsed laser sources, though this is not a prerequisite. It also affords a time resolution far beyond that traditionally achieved with mass spectrometric rapid scan techniques - a recent example being the real-time analysis of a multi-component mixture from an automobile exhaust. Furthermore, the mass range appears to be extremely large: mass up to 500 kDa and beyond what is being readily measured in the laboratory today.

The present set of contributions attempts to give a survey of current applications from many of the active groups in the field. A variety of new applications are considered which are no doubt just the beginning of large new areas of application. By presenting this work in book form it is hoped that it will be of help to the many groups intending to initiate work in this rapidly expanding new area of mass spectrometry.

Laser assisted reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometry (B.A. Mamyrin). How to specify the ion optical system of a time-of-flight mass spectrometer (T. Bergmann, T.P. Martin). The application of ion optics in time-of-flight mass spectrometry (D. Ioanoviciu). Design considerations in energy resolved time-of-flight mass spectrometry (A.E. Giannakopulos et al.). Laser ion sources for time-of-flight mass spectrometry (U. Boesl et al.). Photoemission electron impact ionization in time-of-flight mass spectrometry: an examination of experimental consequences (S.M. Colby, J.P. Reilly). High-resolution mass spectrometry in a linear time-of-flight mass spectrometer (J.M. Grundwürmer et al.). The design and performance of an ion trap storage-reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer (B.M. Chien et al.). Pulse amplitude analysis: a new dimension in single ion time-of-flight mass spectrometry (P.V. Bondarenko et al.). Mass analyzed threshold ionization: structural information for a mass spectrum and mass information for ionic spectroscopy (P.M. Johnson, L. Zhu). Decay energetics of molecular clusters studied by multiphoton mass spectrometry and pulsed field threshold ionization (H.J. Neusser, H. Krause). Using reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer techniques to investigate cluster dynamics and bonding (S. Wei, A.W. Castleman, Jr.). The one dimensional photofragment translational spectroscopic technique: intramolecular clocking of energy redistribution for molecules falling apart (H.J. Hwang et al.). Quantitative determination of kinetic energy releases from metastable decomposition of sputtered organic ions using a time-of-flight mass spectrometer with a single-stage ion mirror (D.F. Barofsky et al.). Kinetic energy analysis in time-of-flight mass spectrometry: application of time of flight methods to clusters and pyrolysis studies in supersonic expansions (J.S. Riley, T. Baer). Photodissociation of magnesium ion-molecule complexes in a refectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer (C.S. Yeh et al.. Resonance-enhanced two-photon ionization time-of-flight spectroscopy of cold perfluorinated polyethers and their external and internal van der Waals dimers (D.S. Anex et al.). Time-of-flight mass spectrometry of DNA laser-ablated from frozen aqueous solutions: applications to the Human Genome Project (P. Williams). Factors affecting the resolution in matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization mass spectrometry (A. Ingendoh et al.). Sequencing of peptides in time-of-flight spectrometer: evaluation of post-source decay following matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization (MALDI) (P. Kaufmann et al.). Energy-isochronous time-of-flight analyzers (H. Wollnik). Author index. Subject index.