12554 IUPAC Gold Book - resolution: peak width definition 10.1351/goldbook.12554 12554 current 1 For a single peak corresponding to singly charged ions at mass \(m\) in a mass spectrum, the resolution may be expressed as \((m/z)/\Delta(m/z)\), where \(\Delta(m/z)\) is the width of the peak at a height which is a specified fraction of the maximum peak height. It is recommended that one of three values 50, 5, or \(\pu{0.5\%}\) should always be used. For an isolated symmetrical peak recorded with a system which is linear in the range between \(\pu{5\%}\) and \(\pu{10\%}\) levels of the peak, the \(\pu{5\%}\) peak width definition is equivalent to the \(\pu{10\%}\) valley definition. A common standard is the definition of resolution based upon \(\Delta m\) being full width of the peak at half its maximum (FWHM) height. resolution: 10 per cent valley definition https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/12553 PAC, 2013, 85, 1515. 'Definitions of terms relating to mass spectrometry (IUPAC Recommendations 2013)' on page 1585 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-06-04-06) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12554/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12554/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12554/plain Citation: 'resolution: peak width definition' 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.12554 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. 2026-06-20T07:26:05+00:00