Collision induced dissociations of ions produced in the field free regions of a triple sector mass spectrometer

Molecular or fragment ions can be prepared by a large variety of reactions in the field free regions of a mass spectrometer; these reactions involve spontaneous dissociation as well as collision induced excitation of singly or doubly charged precursors. Some typical examples show the different means which can lead to a given ion and how they can be studied by collisional activation. It also appears that in most cases the use of a triple sector (E/B/E) mass spectrometer facilitates these experiments as interfering artefacts are suppressed.