The fundamental physical processes of mid infrared laser ablation in the context of laser desorption mass spectrometry were investigated. Understanding the mechanisms of infrared laser desorption and ablation can lead to improvements in these techniques and expand their applications. Particles were generated from glycerol irradiated at atmospheric pressure using a tunable infrared laser at wavelengths between 2.6 and 3.8 μm. The wavelength dependence of size distributions of ablated particles was measured. In addition to particle sizing, fast photography was used to study the dynamics of...