Kinetic energy release distributions in mass Spectrometry

Kinetic energy releases (KERs) in unimolecular fragmentations of singly and multiply charged ions provide information concerning ion structures, react ion energetics and dynamics. This topic is reviewed covering both early and more recent developments. The subtopics discussed are as follows: (1) intr oduction and historical background; (2) ion dissociation and kinetic energy release: kinematics; potential energy surfaces; (3) the kinetic energy rel ease distribution (KERD); (4) metastable peak observations: measurements on magnetic sector and time-of-flight instruments; energy selected results by photoelectron photoion coincidence (PEPICO); (5) extracting KERDs from met astable peak shapes; (6) ion structure determination and reaction mechanism s: singly and multiply charged ions; biomolecules and fullerenes; (7) theor etical approaches: phase space theory (PST), orbiting transition state (OTS )/PST, finite heat bath theory (FHBT) and the maximum entropy method; (8) e xit channel interactions; (9) general trends: time and energy dependences; (10) thermochemistry: organometallic reactions, proton-bound clusters, full erenes; and (11) the efficiency of phase space sampling. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.