Valence change in rare earth cluster oxides

Rare earth clusters of europium, thullium and ytterbium were generated by gas aggregation technique and probed by photoionization mass spectrometry. Their relative intensities in mass spectra have shown that their stabilities are governed by compact geometrical structures. The addition of oxygen gas in the nucleation region was used to produce the reactive nucleation. Several stages of oxidation were observed as a function of oxygen pressure up to saturation. For the maximal degree of oxidation the observed oxide ion compositions enable one to follow the valence of metal atom in its oxide as cluster size increases. This exhibits a divalent to trivalent valence change with cluster size. Moreover it emerges from the data that the divalent to trivalent transition for Tm, Yb, and Eu occurs at different size values.