Low vacuum photo electron emitting thin films

Impact ionisation is a standard procedure to ionise gaseous or vaporisable substances in organic mass spectrometry. In this work, a “softer” ionisation is introduced which seems to be an alternative ion source for reducing collision between substance molecules and the hot internal walls of the box. Through collision mainly found in impact ionisation sources, fragments are built especially from thermally sensitive substances falsifying the spectra. We present here photoelectron emitting materials for the soft ionisation using semiconducting compounds, galliumn nitride (GaN), and a representative of the borides, lanthanum hexaboride (LaB6). They are evaluated by photoelectron spectroscopic studies. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)