Mass spectrometry timeline

19th Century

1886

Eugen Goldstein observes canal rays.

1898

Wilhelm Wien demonstrates that canal rays can be deflected using strong electric and magnetic fields.

20th Century

1905

Joseph John Thomson begins his study of positive rays.

1906

Thomson is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases"

1919

Francis Aston constructs the first velocity focusing mass spectrograph with mass resolving power of 130.

1922

Aston is awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry "for his discovery, by means of his mass spectrograph, of isotopes, in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his enunciation of the whole-number rule."

1931

Ernest O. Lawrence invents the cyclotron.

1934

Josef Mattauch and Richard Herzog develop the double-focusing mass spectrograph.

1936

Arthur J. Dempster develops the spark ionization source.

1937

Aston constructs a mass spectrograph with resolving power of 2000.

1939

Lawrence receives the Nobel Prize in Physics for the cyclotron.

1942

Lawrence develops the Calutron for uranium isotope separation.

1946

William Stephens presents the concept of a time-of-flight mass spectrometer.

1956

Fred McLafferty proposes a hydrogen transfer reaction that will come to be known as the McLafferty rearrangement.

1959

Researchers at Dow Chemical interface a gas chromatograph to a mass spectrometer.

1966

[[[Chemical ionization]] is developed.

1968

Malcolm Dole develops electrospray ionization.

1976

Ronald MacFarlane and co-workers develop plasma desorption mass spectrometry.

1984

John Fenn and co-workers use electrospray to ionize biomolecules.

1985

Franz Hillenkamp, Michael Karas and co-workers describe and coin the term matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI).

1987

Koichi Tanaka uses the ????????????????????????ultra fine metal plus liquid matrix method?????????????????????? to ionize intact proteins.

1989

Wolfgang Paul receives the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the development of the ion trap technique"

21st Century

2002

John Fenn and Koichi Tanaka are awarded one-quarter of the Nobel Prize in chemistry each "for the development of soft desorption ionisation methods ... for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules."

External Links

• Bristol History of Mass Spectrometry

• Measuring Mass: From Positive Rays to Proteins by Michael A. Grayson (Editor)

• Scripps History of Mass Spectrometry

• Wikipedia:Mass spectrometry