Scatter profiling: A potentially useful technique for isomeric ion distinction and stability determination

Abstract

A method to determine the extent of angular scattering of fragment-ion products of keV-collision-activated decomposition (CAD) reactions and, in particular, the collisional scatter incurred by the parent ions prior to their dissociation, is outlined. Since the half-widths of the collisional scatter profiles correlate approximately with the mean reaction endothermicities for some ‘test’ reactions, the method may, in principle, be used to estimate the stabilities of isomeric ion structures relative to a common fragmentation threshold level. For single-proton-loss CAD reactions of some [H3, C, X]+ ions (X = F, Cl, OH) with either [H3CX]+ or ylidion, [H2CXH]+ structure, collisional scatter is found in each case to be greater for the isomeric ion with the more stable structure. The estimated magnitudes of the mean energy depositions occurring in the keV-collision-activation processes are generally much larger than the calculated minimum energy requirements, suggesting that survivable [M  H]+ products can be formed with up to several eV of internal energy.