Academic Staff
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Dr John Traeger BSc Melb., PhD La Trobe, MRACI Reader and Associate Professor
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Research Interests
Fundamental Mass Spectrometry.Thermochemistry of Gas-Phase Cations
My major research is concerned with the precise determination of threshold appearance energies for gas-phase cations by photoionization mass spectrometry (PIMS). Such information is of fundamental importance in the area of gas-phase chemistry where, for example, it is used to measure bond energies, to calculate absolute heats of formation and proton affinities, as an aid to ion structure determination, and to assist in the formulation of reaction pathway mechanisms. Because of the nature of the threshold process, the energy available for photoionization and subsequent fragmentation is well defined, which is not the case for conventional electron ionization. The La Trobe photoionization mass spectrometer is one of only a few such instruments in the world capable of providing accurate threshold energetic information for gas-phase ions.
