Complexes of gold and imidazole formed in helium nanodroplets

Abstract

We have studied complexes of gold atoms and imidazole (C3N2H4) produced in helium nanodroplets.

Multiply Charged Helium Droplet Anions

“…4 He droplets formed in vacuum have an equilibrium temperature of 0.37 Ka nd are in as uperfluid state, which resultsi na ne nvironment within the droplets with no internal friction and an extremelyh igh thermal conductivity.H elium droplets are capable of capturing ands olvating aw ide range of atomica nd molecular species, which, together with their aforementioned properties, makest hem au seful toolf or experimental studies in, for instance, chemistry and chemical physics. [2,3,4] Examples of processes that have been studied by using doped He droplets are reaction productso fm etal nanoparticles and organic molecules, [5] reactionsb etween atomic radicals and complex molecules, [6] and sub-Kelvin protont ransfer reactions. [7] Helium dropletsa re also av ersatilem atrix for photochemical and spectroscopic studies of cold molecules and ions.…”

Complexes with Atomic Gold Ions: Efficient Bis-Ligand Formation

“…The ligand most weakly bound to gold is helium [9] and thus ligand-exchange with every other ligand can be expected inside a helium nanodroplet (HND). In the case of neutral helium droplets, this was successfully demonstrated by the growth of pristine and mixed gold clusters containing a few gold atoms [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18], as well as nanoparticles and nanowires that contain many thousand atoms [19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Recently, we doped neutral HNDs containing about 10 6 He atoms with gold vapor and investigated low-mass ions formed upon electron ionization and ejected from the massive droplets [12].…”

Pickup and reactions of molecules on clusters relevant for atmospheric and interstellar processes

“…The pickup technique has been used since the 1980s 82 for doping clusters with different molecules as the cluster beam passes through a diluted gas and the gas molecules are embedded in the clusters upon sticking collisions. It has been exploited especially in experiments with He-nanodroplets, where numerous examples exist, e.g., for spectroscopy, 15,18,19,83,84 reactions, 20,21,[85][86][87][88][89][90] and generation of clusters 91 in the cold superfluid environment of He-nanodroplets. Interesting applications have recently been developed, such as the decoration and visualization of superfluid vorticies with atoms in He-nanodroplets.…”

“…94 In helium nanodroplets, complexes of picked up molecules were generated. [16][17][18]21,83,88,89,91,199 However, rare gas clusters, and especially helium, represent rather special cases, and here we concentrate on the molecular clusters such as the ice nanoparticles.…”