John B. Fenn

Electrospray ionization has recently emerged as a powerful technique for producing intact ions in vacuo from large and complex species in solution. To an extent greater than has previously been possible with the more familiar "soft" ionization methods, this technique makes the power and elegance of mass spectrometric analysis applicable to the large and fragile polar molecules that play such vital roles in biological systems. The distinguishing features of electrospray spectra for large molecules are coherent sequences of peaks whose component ions are multiply charged, the ions of each peak differing by one charge from those of adjacent neighbors in the sequence. Spectra have been obtained for biopolymers including oligonucleotides and proteins, the latter having molecular weights up to 130,000, with as yet no evidence of an upper limit.

ADVERTISEMENT RETURN TO ISSUEPREVArticleNEXTElectrospray ion source. Another variation on the free-jet themeMasamichi Yamashita and John B. FennCite this: J. Phys. Chem. 1984, 88, 20, 4451–4459Publication Date (Print):September 1, 1984Publication History Published online1 May 2002Published inissue 1 September 1984https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/j150664a002https://doi.org/10.1021/j150664a002research-articleACS PublicationsRequest reuse permissionsArticle Views6644Altmetric-Citations1629LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InRedditEmail Other access options Get e-Alerts

ADVERTISEMENT RETURN TO ISSUEPREVArticleNEXTElectrospray interface for liquid chromatographs and mass spectrometersCraig M. Whitehouse, Robert N. Dreyer, Masamichi. Yamashita, and John B. FennCite this: Anal. Chem. 1985, 57, 3, 675–679Publication Date (Print):March 1, 1985Publication History Published online1 May 2002Published inissue 1 March 1985https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac00280a023https://doi.org/10.1021/ac00280a023research-articleACS PublicationsRequest reuse permissionsArticle Views3745Altmetric-Citations1219LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InRedditEmail Other access optionsGet e-Alertsclose Get e-Alerts

From flames to flying elephants: A few years ago the idea of making proteins or polymers “fly” by electrospray ionization (ESI) seemed as improbable as a flying elephant, but today it is a standard part of modern mass spectrometers. The key to this success was the development of free jet technology.