species is also considered. In all of these works either visible or UV light was used
for the experiments. In the final chapter by Schlatho ¨lter and Hoekstra, recent work
in extending the wavelength region to the vacuum ultraviolet is presented, and the
importance of this region is clearly emphasised by work on peptide ions.
Let us end by saying that the chosen topics for this volume present a selection of
important scientific contributions that we believe have been made to this rapidly
increasing field. They are of course biased by our own interests, and other important
work could have been covered, e.g. the electronic properties of simpler molecular
ions isolated in vacuo that were earlier explored. However, we hope that the reader
has got an impression after reading all the chapters of the rich possibilities that exist
to form and study complicated and fragile ions in vacuo, and that, most importantly,
new fundamental science is learned from such work. We would like to take the
opportunity to thank all the authors who have contributed to this volume and in our
opinion have made this volume a most timely one and one of very high quality.
Aarhus, June 25, 2013
Steen Brøndsted Nielsen and Jean Ann Wyer
Preface
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