What is a relative isotopic mass?
The mass of a single atom of a specific isotope of an element, compared to 1/12th the mass of a carbon-12 atom.
What is the relative atomic mass?
The weighed mean mass of an atom of an element relative to 1/12 of the mass of an atom of carbon-12.
What are the 5 steps of mass spectrometry?
Vaporization, Ionisation, acceleration, deflection and detection
How is acceleration achieved in mass spectrometry?
By an electric field
Why is deflection used in mass spectrometry?
To separate ions by charge to mass using a magnetic field.
How is detection used in mass spectrometry?
Ions are detected by an electric current created when electrons are transferred from the metal detector to the ions and the mass spectrum is generated by a computer software.
