Phosphorus cluster cations formed in doped helium nanodroplets are different

Complexes with Atomic Gold Ions: Efficient Bis-Ligand Formation

“…Vaporizing red phosphorus at low temperatures produces a gas primarily consisting of P 4 . However, the source of phosphorus in the present study was a ceramic paste that was utilized to build the gold oven [37]. When passing HNDs through the heated oven the mass spectra revealed a long series of phosphorus cluster ions up to P 80 + with stoichiometric cluster ions Au(P 2 ) n + strongly enhanced in intensity compared to non-stoichiometric ions AuP(P 2 ) n + (full and open circles in Figure 6, respectively).…”

“…By using this technique, the stoichiometric cation SF 6 + could be detected for the first time via pickup of SF 6 into charged HNDs, as recently demonstrated by Albertini et al [35]. Pre-doping of charged HNDs with hydrogen was successfully utilized to prevent fragmentation of fragile molecular dopants by a gentle proton transfer reaction and avoid the exothermic charge transfer process from He n + [36,37]. Besides pristine gold cluster ions Au m + , binary cluster ions of the form He n Au m + were also observed [12,14].…”

Electron diffraction as a structure tool for charged and neutral nanoclusters formed in superfluid helium droplets

“…39 Differences in structures of small clusters formed in helium droplets from those in the gas phase or condensed phase are therefore not surprising but expected. 41,42…”

“…Our experience with ionized nanoclusters is quite limited, 47,64 and we suspect that the observed structures are probably also affected by the scheme of ionization. 42 The cluster may be stuck at the neutral geometry upon ionization due to fast energy dissipation in helium droplets. Nevertheless, after electron impact ionization, the observed ionized small clusters of argon and pyrene adopt structures of the corresponding ionic gas phase global minima, 47,64 while an ionized large Ar cluster forms a neutral solvation shell surrounding a linear Ar 3 + core.…”

Chemistry and physics of dopants embedded in helium droplets

“…These results strongly suggest that the odd numbered P clusters are the product of fragmentation upon ionization. The ionization via proton transfer within HNDs sufficiently quenches these reactions and leads to a charged cluster size distribution that closely resembles that of neutral P clusters (Albertini, Hechenberger, et al, 2021).…”