Probing the gas-phase ion chemistry of simple Ge systems

The present review presents a tour de force through the main aspects related to the positive and negative ion mass spectrometry of simple Ge-containing compounds. Important properties such as proton affinity, gas-phase acidities, and electron affinities are discussed for the few cases where such parameters are experimentally known, or for which high-level theoretical calculations are available. The main ion-molecule reactions, both positive and negative ions, of simple germanium ions is also discussed with emphasis on the mechanism of these reactions and the structure of the product ions. This review also presents a brief survey of gas-phase Ge cluster ions. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.