Dissociation pathways of doubly and triply charged gold clusters

Collision induced dissociation is applied to study the fragmentation channels of multiply charged gold clusters, Au N2⁺, size N= 7 –35, and Au> _N3+}, N = 19–35, stored in an ion cyclotron resonance (Penning) trap. The main dissociation pathways are neutral monomer evaporation, Au> _NZ+to Au> _N-1Z+} + Au, for the larger and fission into a charged trimer plus the remaining cluster, Au> _NZ+to{}Au> _N-3(Z-1)+} +{}Au> ₃₊}, for the smaller clusters. In the intermediate cluster size region an odd–even alternation of the two competing decay pathways is observed. In addition, for some specific cluster sizes there are indications of neutral dimer evaporation, Au> _NZ+to{}Au> _N-2Z++Au> ₂}, and of extremely asymmetric fission of the form Au> _NZ+to Au> _N-1(Z-1)+} + Au⁺. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.