Studies of ion structures by photodissociation

Abstract

In this paper photodissociation studies of ion structures, published since 1988, are reviewed. As in previous years, structures of different types of ions have been studied by measurement of photodissociation spectra and photon-induced decay curves (Sections 5 and 6). In addition, the recent introduction of external ion sources in ion cyclotron resonance spectrometers has opened up the possibility of measuring (ultraviolet) photofragment mass spectra of large ions. Several groups have investigated the possibilities of this method, which is highly comparable with, but more effective than, collisionally-induced dissociation (Section 4). In recent years only a few results obtained with beam spectrometers have been published. This may change in the near future because of recent proposals to use pulsed beam mass spectrometers in combination with pulsed excimer lasers instead of the continuous ion beams and c.w. lasers used before (Section 3).