12545 IUPAC Gold Book - Rayleigh limit 10.1351/goldbook.12545 12545 current 1 Limiting droplet size at which self-fragmentation will occur for charged droplets generated in electrospray or other ionization processes. Self-fragmentation occurs when the electrostatic repulsion force generated by the excess charge exceeds the surface tension that maintains the integrity of the droplet. PAC, 2013, 85, 1515. 'Definitions of terms relating to mass spectrometry (IUPAC Recommendations 2013)' on page 1583 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-06-04-06) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12545/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12545/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12545/plain Citation: 'Rayleigh limit' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.12545 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-08-05T23:18:58+00:00