Hyperthermal surface ionisation

Supersonic molecular beam (SMB) mass spectrometry (SMB-MS) measures the mass spectrum of vibra-tionally cold molecules (cold El). Supersonic molecular beams [43] are formed by the co-expansion of an atmospheric pressure helium or hydrogen carrier gas, seeded with heavier sample organic molecules, through a simple pinhole (ca. 100 p,m i.d.) into a 10 5-mbar vacuum with flow-rates of 200 ml. rn in. In SMB, molecular ionisation is obtained either through improved electron impact ionisation, or through hyperthermal surface ionisation... 

Hyperthermal surface ionisation (HSI) is an ultrasensitive tuneable selective ion source [222,223] which is based on the very effective ionisation of various hyperthermal molecules upon their scattering from a surface with a high work function, such as rhenium oxide. Molecule-surface electron transfer constitutes the major and most important HSI mechanism for GC-MS. 

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