Ion mobility measurements of metal halide clusters

Abstract

The failure of standard solid state methods to determine the structure of very small clusters has been the starting point to adapt the ion chromatography technique to cluster experiments. A new approach combining an ion drift cell and a time-of-flight mass spectrometer for cluster ion mobility measurements is described. In this publication we concentrate on the experimental set-up and the data analysis starting with the time-of-flight mass spectra. Furthermore, first results concerning relative ion mobilities for cesium iodide and sodium iodide clusters will be shown to demonstrate the feasibility of the new tandem instrument.