Reduced mobilities of lanthanide cations measured using high-resolution ion mobility mass spectrometry with comparisons between experiment and theory

Abstract Reduced mobilities for ground-state electronic configurations of Eu + , Gd + , Yb + , and Lu + have been measured using a high-resolution ion mobility mass spectrometer. The instrument uses a 2 m drift tube to generate high-resolution ion mobility data. Lanthanide cations were generated using pulsed-laser vaporization of either a metal rod or foil target. The mobilities of these four lanthanide cations have been previously studied using high-quality ab initio calculations, to determine potential energy curves that described their interactions with the noble gases (He to Xe). A comparison between experimental and theoretical results shows extremely good agreement in three of the four systems.