Correlating parent-fragment relationships in cluster photoionization

Abstract

Fragment signals in ordinary mass spectra carry no label to identify their parent molecule. By correlating mass signals with rotational Raman spectra, we created a method to label each ion signal with the spectroscopic fingerprint of its neutral parent molecule. In data for a carbon disulfide molecular cluster beam, we assigned 28 distinct ionization and fragmentation channels based on their mass-correlated rotational fingerprints. Unexpected observations included the formation of energetic S2 and SCCS cationic fragments from the CS2-dimer cluster and a significant CS3 signal, uncorrelated to the dimer. The large number of observed channels revealed a surprising complexity that could only be addressed with correlated spectroscopy and computer-aided correlation analysis.