Mass-to-charge ratio

Mass-to-charge ratio
The mass-to-charge ratio ratio (m/Q) is a physical quantity that is widely used in theelectrodynamics of charged particles, e.g. in electron optics and ion optics. It appears in the scientific fields of lithography, electron microscopy, cathode ray tubes, accelerator physics, nuclear physics, Auger spectroscopy, cosmology and mass spectrometry.[1] The importance of the mass-to-charge ratio, according to classical electrodynamics, is that two particles with the same mass-to-charge ratio move in the same path in a vacuum when subjected to the same electric and magnetic fields.

Some fields use the charge-to-mass ratio (Q/m) instead, which is the multiplicative inverse of the mass-to-charge ratio.