Spectroscopy of size-selected sodium clusters

The method of angular resolved elastic scattering has been used to achieve a size selection of neutral sodium clusters. After the scattering process the clusters are ionized by single photon ionization with various laser energies and detected by a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The elastic scattering of Na₂ by Ne serves as a test for the experimental setup. Angular dependence of scattered sodium clusters ionized with 308 nm shows a significant amount of fragmentation of the neutral Na₆ to Na₉ clusters which are observed in the Na ₅ ⁺ and Na ₆ ⁺ ion channels.     

Electron bombardment fragmentation of size selected molecular clusters

(CO₂) _n , (NO) _n and (NH₃) _n clusters are generated in a supersonic molecular beam and size selected by scattering from an He beam. By measurements of angular dependent mass spectra, TOF distributions and the angular dependence of the scattered signal quantitative information on the fragmentation probability by electron impact is derived. The van der Waals systems (CO₂) _n and (NO) _n appear only at masses which are simply multiples of the monomer mass. The preferred cluster ion is the monomer ion for all investigated cluster sizes withn=2 to 4. The fragment pattern for the quasi-hydrogen bonded (NH₃) _n -cluster shows, beside a large number of fragment masses, a preference for protonated ions. The results are explained in terms of simple models based on the structural change from the neutral to the ionized configuration and the fragmentation pattern of the monomer followed by ionmolecule reactions.     

Electron impact fragmentation of some mixed cyclotetraphosphazenes

The electron impact fragmentations of some cyclotetraphosphazenes are reported and discussed. The major fragmentation path involves loss of two amine radicals and one chlorine radical in the series P₄N₄Cl_8-n(NMe₂)_n when n=2, and subsequent stages involve a ring contraction process with elimination of a P = N fragment, when n = 5 loss of amine radicals predominates on statistical grounds with little evidence of ring contraction. In the series P₄N₄F_8-n(NMe₂)_n fragmentation is dominated by loss of amino radicals when n = 4 and loss of fluorine radicals predominates on statistical grounds when n = 2. In the series P₄N₄F_8-nX_n (n = 2 or 4, X = Cl or Br), when n = 2 and X = Br the major fragmentation path is the loss of two bromine radicals, whereas when X = Cl the more favoured path is the loss of two chlorine radicals. In both, subsequent stages involve ring contraction reactions with elimination of a PN fragment. When n = 4 and X = Br or Cl on bond energy grounds the more favoured fragmentation pattern is the loss of bromine or chlorine radicals, respectively.     

Vibrational spectroscopy of size-selected sodium-doped water clusters

The vibrational OH stretch spectra have been measured for Na(H2O)n clusters in the size range from n = 8 to 60. The complete size selection is achieved by coupling the UV radiation of a dye laser below the ionization threshold with the tunable IR radiation of an optical parametric oscillator. The spectra are dominated by intensity peaks around 3400 cm(-1) which we attribute to an increased transition dipole moment of delocalized electrons in this type of doped cluster. Aside from the positions of free (3715 cm(-1)) and double donor (3560 cm(-1)) bonds which are known from pure water clusters, specific transitions are observed at 3640 cm(-1) and in the range of the single donor bonds between 3000 and 3200 cm(-1).     

Optical spectra of size-selected matrix-isolated silicon clusters

Size selected silicon clusters have been isolated in rare gas matrices and studied by optical absorption spectroscopy. The clusters were produced in a pulsed laser vaporization source, size selected with a quadrupole mass spectrometer and deposited at low energies into a cocondensed krypton matrix held at T<20 K. A comparison of the optical spectra of ten atom wide bands (Si₂₅-Si₃₅, Si₃₅-Si₄₅ and Si₄₅-Si₅₅) shows the general size evolution of the optical properties. Single cluster sizes have also been isolated and show somewhat sharper spectra than the bands. The measured spectra show similarities to spectra calculated using Mie theory and bulk optical constants. Cluster-cluster agglomeration was studied by evaporating the inert gas matrix. The results suggest that the clusters agglomerate into larger particles even under the mildest "soft landing" conditions.     

Electron impact fragmentation of 2-arylhydrazonopropandioic acid derivatives

Examination of the mass spectra of eleven 2-arylhydrazonopropandioic acid derivatives reveals that a radical ion which is tentatively formulated as a 1H-diazirine species is produced in each case (except for the diphenyl este) by more than one process. Formation of what is formally the aryl amine radical ion occurs by a novel hydrogen rearrangement. Simple cleavage of the bonds β to either the aromatic ring or the C?N moiety also produces abundant ions. The diphenyl ester behaves anomalously yielding the phenol ion instead of the amine. The proposed mechanisms were confirmed by metastable studies, deuterium labelling and exact mass measurements.     

Electron impact fragmentation of some cyclohexyl thiophosphororganic amides

This paper presents the mass spectra, fragmentation pathways and structures of ions obtained by electron impact from methyl cyclohexyl phosphinomorpholinylamidothioate (1), cyclohexyl phosphonomorpholinylamidochloridothioate (2), cyclohexyl morpholinylamidophosphonothioic acid (3) and O-methyl cyclohexyl phosphonomorpholinylamidothioate (4). The fragmentation pathways and ion structures were established by exact mass determinations on compound 1 and by metastable transitions of all the compounds.     

Modelization of the fragmentation dynamics of krypton clusters (Kr(n),n=2-11) following electron impact ionization

We present the first prediction for the fragmentation dynamics following electron impact ionization of neutral krypton clusters from 2 to 11 atoms. Fragment proportions and parent ion lifetimes are deduced from a molecular dynamics with quantum transitions study in which the nuclei are treated classically and the transitions between electronic states quantum mechanically. The potential-energy surfaces are derived from a diatomics-in-molecules model to which induced dipole-induced dipole and spin-orbit interactions are added. The results show surprisingly fast and extensive fragmentation for clusters of such a heavy atom, although not as extensive as in the case of neon clusters studied previously [D. Bonhommeau et al., J. Chem. Phys. 123, 54316 (2005)]. The parent ion lifetimes range from 2.8 to 0.7 ps, and the most abundant fragment is Kr(2) (+) for all studied sizes, followed by Kr(+) for sizes smaller than 7 atoms and by Kr(3) (+) for larger sizes. Trimer and larger fragments are found to originate from the lower electronic states of parent ions. The comparison with preliminary results from experiments on size-selected neutral clusters conducted by Steinbach et al. (private communication) reveal a good agreement on the extensive character of the fragmentation. It is checked that the additional internal energy brought by the helium scattering technique used for size selection does not affect the fragment proportions. In addition, the existence of long-lived trajectories is revealed, and they are found to be more and more important for larger cluster sizes and to favor the stabilization of larger fragments. The implications of this work for microsecond-scale dynamics of ionized rare-gas clusters are discussed. In particular, given the extent of fragmentation of the parent clusters and the fast kinetics of the whole process, the small cluster ions that exhibit a monomer loss in the microsecond time window must originate from much larger neutral precursors. The decay rate of the II(12)(u) state of the ionic dimer Kr(2) (+) by spin-orbit coupling is found to be of the order of 3 ps, in contrast to the expected tens of microseconds, but only reasonably faster than the corresponding state of HeNe(+). Finally, the spin-orbit interaction strongly affects both the Kr(+)Kr(2) (+) ratio and some of the characteristic times of the dynamics, especially for smaller sizes, but not the overall dependence of the fragment proportions as a function of cluster size.     

Electron impact induced fragmentation of some 1,2,4-triazole derivatives

The mass spectra of eight 1,2,4-triazole derivaties have been recorded and found tao reveal extensive hydrogen and skeletal migrations. The structures of the fragments have been confirmed by deuterium labelling and exact mass measurement. The compounds revealed striking differences in their spectra depending on the nature of the substituents.     

Electron impact induced alkyl-group fragmentation on the acridine nucleus

The fragmentation of simple alkyl acridines closely resembles that of the analogous quinoline derivatives. Interaction between the heteroatom and a 4-alkyl substituent dramatically influences the fragmentation pattern with resultant γ-cleavage or rearrangement to the heteroatom and corresponding elimination of an alkene fragment. The fragmentation of the 9-chloroalkylacridines closely resembles that of the acridines with the loss of the clorine atom superposed on the alkylacridine fragmentation. Redistribution of the centre of apparent charge localization occurs for the acridones with a tendency for interaction with the 9-position.     

Spectroscopy and reactivity of size-selected Mg+ -ammonia clusters

Photodissociation spectra for mass-selected Mg(+)(NH(3))(n) clusters for n=1 to 7 are reported over the photon energy range from 7000 to 38 500 cm(-1). The singly solvated cluster, which dissociates primarily via a N-H bond cleavage, exhibits a resolved vibrational structure corresponding to two progressions in the intracluster Mg(+)-NH(3) modes. The addition of the second, third, and fourth solvent molecules results in monotonic redshifts that appear to halt near 8500 cm(-1), where a sharp feature in the electronic spectrum is correlated with the formation of a Mg(+)(NH(3))(4) complex with T(d) symmetry and the closing of the first solvation shell. The spectra for the clusters with 5 to 7 solvent molecules strongly resemble that for the tetramer, suggesting that these solvent molecules occupy a second solvation shell. The wavelength-dependent branching-ratio measurements show that increasing the photon energies generally result in the loss of additional solvent molecules but that enhancements for a specific solvent number loss may reveal special stability for the resultant fragments. The majority of the experimental evidence suggests that the decay of these clusters occurs via the internal conversion of the initially excited electronic states to the ground state, followed by dissociation. In the case of the monomer, the selective cleavage of a N-H bond in the solvent suggests that this internal-conversion process may populate regions of the ground-state surface in the vicinity of an insertion complex H-Mg(+)-NH(2), whose existence is predicted by ab initio calculations.     

Electron impact ionization of small silver and copper clusters

Using a quadrupole mass spectrometer, relative cross sections for electron impact ionization of neutral Ag _n and Cu _n clusters withn=1 ... 4 have been measured for electron energies between threshold and 125 eV. From the results, the following ionization energies were obtained: Ag₂: 7.26±0.1 eV, Ag₃: 6.19±0.2 eV, Ag₄: 6.33±0.3 eV, Cu₂: 7.46±0.15 eV, Cu₃: 6.14±1.0 eV, Cu₄: 7.00±0.6 eV. With only two exceptions, these values agree with other data published for Ag₂, Cu₂, Cu₃ and Cu₄.     

Infrared molecular beam depletion spectroscopy of size-selected methanol clusters

Molecular beam depletion spectroscopy has been employed to study the dissociation of small methanol clusters in the spectral region between 1000 and 1100 cm^?1 which covers thev ₈ CO stretch (1033.5 cm^?1) and thev ₇ CH₃ rock (1074.5 cm^?1) monomer vibrations. Size selection has been achieved by dispersing the (CH₃OH) _n cluster beam by a secondary He beam. Aside from the recently published CH₃OH dimer absorption bands at 1026.5 and 1051.6 cm^?1 which are assigned to the excitation of the CO stretching vibrations in the non-equivalent subunits of the hydrogen-bonded complex, a previously unobserved band was found at 1071.3 cm^?1. This absorption band is attributed to the excitation of the CH₃ rocking vibration in the dimer. It appears that this transition which is very weak in the free methanol monomer receives substantial oscillator strength due to the intermolecular interaction in the complex. A splitting of this band could not be observed. The trimer and tetramer spectra feature single peaks for the CO stretching vibration being centered at 1042.2 cm^?1 and 1044.0 cm^?1, respectively. This observation is consistent with the cyclic structures of these species. The trimer and tetramer rocking vibrations are observed near 1060.5 cm^?1 but cannot be localized exactly, due to a gap in the CO₂ laser tuning range.     

Adsorption of polar molecules on krypton clusters

The formation process of binary clusters has been studied using synchrotron based core level photoelectron spectroscopy. Free neutral krypton clusters have been produced by adiabatic expansion and doped with chloromethane molecules using the pickup technique. The comparison between the integrated intensities, linewidths, and level shifts of the cluster features of pure krypton and of chloromethane-krypton clusters has been used to obtain information about the cluster geometry. We have shown that most of the chloromethane molecules remain on the surface of the clusters.     

Electron impact fragmentation of some tetramethyl derivatives of thiathrene and phenoxathiin

Mass spectra of thiathrene and three tetramethylthiathrenes (II), (III) and (IV) are reported and discussed. The principal mode of fragmentation of these compounds consists of the loss of sulphur to give the corresponding dibenzothiophene ion. The general pattern of electronolytic decomposition among the tetramethylthianthrenes is, however, much more complex. The mass spectrum of 2,3,7,8-tetramethylphenoxathiin (VI) is also reported and compared with the spectrum of the corresponding thianthrene derivatives.     

Dynamics of relaxation and fragmentation in size-selected icosahedral Ar(n)[NO(-)(v = 1)] clusters

We study the vibrational relaxation and solvation dynamics in size-selected icosahedral Ar(n)(NO(-)) at 300 K, where NO(-)(X(3)Σ(-)) is in v = 1 and n = 1-12, using a classical dynamics method and an interaction model consisting of detailed host-guest and host-host interactions. Two relaxation time scales are found: (i) the short-time (<200 ps), in which rate is nearly independent of cluster size, and (ii) the ns scale, in which a slow energy transfer process occurs between NO(-) vibration and argon modes at a rate (~10(8) s(-1)) decreasing slightly from n = 12 to 6 and rapidly from n = 5 to 1 (~10(6) s(-1)). In Ar(12)(NO(-)), less than one-quarter of the host atoms sampled evaporate, nearly 60% of evaporation occurring within 200 ps caused by rapid energy transfer from NO(-) at short time. The fraction of evaporation decreases nearly exponentially with increasing evaporation time, but ~16% of evaporation still occurs on a time scale longer than 1 ns. Evaporation from one hemisphere of Ar(12)(NO(-)) dominates the rest. Final cluster sizes commonly produced from the fragmentation of Ar(12)(NO(-)) are n = 6-11 (evaporation of 6-1 atoms) and n = 12 (no evaporation).