Photon emissions from ion beam-target gas collisions in a mass spectrometer and the thermochemistry of organic free radicals and cations.

TL;DRAbstract

This thesis represents the culmination of four years of research into two aspects of gas phase ion chemistry. The first was an attempt to obtain information on internal excitation in polyatomic projectile - target gas collisions in a mass spectrometer. Knowledge of internal excitation is critical to the interpretation of collision induced dissociation (CID) mass spectra. A novel collision cell was designed for a VG ZAB-2F sector mass spectrometer which permitted the detection and analysis of photon emissions from keV projectile - target gas collisions. Early experiments performed in the second field-free region of the mass spectrometer (sec. 4.2) involved the analysis of emitted light with a series of wavelength cutoff filters. Histographic emission spectra were obtained for three $\rm C\sb2,H\sb4,O\sp{+\cdot}$ ions and two $\rm C\sb2,H\sb5,Cl\sp{+\cdot}$ ions. The spectral characteristics were found to be indicative of ion structure. This led to the development of a more elaborate app

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