The role of fast atom bombardment mass spectroscopy (FABMS) in cluster characterization

Abstract

Recebido em 13/2/04; aceito em 15/10/04; publicado na web em 2/2/05Fast atom bombardment mass spectroscopy has been used to study a large number of cationic phosphine-containing transitionmetal-gold clusters, which ranged in mass from 1000 to 4000. Many of these clusters have been previously characterized and were examined in order to test the usefulness of the FABMS technique. Results showed that FABMS is excellent in giving the correct molecular formula and when combined with NMR, IR, and microanalysis gave a reliable characterization for cationic clusters 1 . Recently FABMS has become one of the techniques employed as routine in cluster characterization 2,3 and also is an effective tool for the structure analysis of large biomolecules 4 . Some results in the present work reinforce the importance of these data in the characterization of clusters in the absence of crystals with quality for X-ray analysis.