Collisional Activation Mass Spectrometry—A New Probe for Determining the Structure of Ions in the Gas Phase

Organic ions with high translational energy colliding inelastically with neutral atoms or molecules become excited electronically at the expense of their translational energy. The excitation energy enables a wide range of dissociation reactions to occur and the intensity relationships yield information about the structure of the ions concerned and also permit conclusions to be drawn about the mechanism of their formation.