THE USE OF KINETIC-ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS TO DETERMINE THE RELATIVE CONTRIBUTIONS OF GAS-PHASE AND SURFACE FRAGMENTATION IN KILOELECTRONVOLT ION SPUTTERING OF A QUATERNARY AMMONIUM SALT

Kinetic energy distributions have been used to evaluate the extent to which gas-phase decompositions contribute to the production of fragment ions in organic secondary ion mass spectra of a quaternary ammonium salt. Molecular kinetic energy distributions demonstrate that many fragment ions have a prominent gas-phase component which may account for as much as 50% of the observed fragment ion signal obtained in a double focussing mass spectrometer.