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AAT Bioquest

What are the steps of mass spectroscopy?

Posted August 19, 2022


Answer

There are many steps for completing mass spectroscopy experiments. The first step is when sample molecules in the vapor phase are ionized by collision, with high energy electrons. They become charged and pass through the magnetic and/or electrostatic field. Here, they are detected along a circular path, corresponding to their m/z ratio. Ionization by displacement of just a single electron ends up in a molecular ion. Because it's unstable, the molecular ion then breaks into smaller fragments. The deflected beams pick up speed along separate circular paths, again corresponding to the m/z ratios of ions. The last step is the scanning of the magnetic or electrostatic field to observe the different paths for different fragmented ions. These reach the detector at different points and create detector signals.

Additional resources

Mass Spectroscopy