Study on the Production of Gas-Phase Co/Cl Cluster by Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

Cluster ions (Cocl2 ).Co+, (CoCl2 ).CoCl+, (CoCl2 ).Cl-, (CoCl2 )', n = 1 ~ 2, andwater solvated cluster ions (CoCl2 )n. (H2O).CoCl+,n= 1~ 7,m = 1 ~5 were produced by532nm laser vaporization of CoCl. 6H2O solid pellet ithe formation mechanisms of clusters were investigated by time-of-flight mass spectrometry. We found that lager clustercan only be detected under a short range of laser energy and delay time between laserand pulsed electric accelerati0n v0ltage. All of the observed in formation indicates thatthese cluster ions are produced by a gas-phase ion-molecule reaction and aggregation ofgas phase CoCl2. Our experiment results show that large size clusteer can also be produced by direct laser vaporization of some compounds without carrying gas.