There are two ways of achieving ion formation without imparting as much energy as by electron impact - in other words, "soft" rather than "hard" ionizations. Field ionization is one such method, in wh...There are two ways of achieving ion formation without imparting as much energy as by electron impact - in other words, "soft" rather than "hard" ionizations. Field ionization is one such method, in which ionization results from passing the molecules through a high electric field. An alternative method is chemical ionization that, as might be expected from its name, more chemically interesting and is closely allied to ion cyclotron resonance, which will be discussed in the next section.
