The free neutral nanoscale NaCl clusters have been produced in a beam and studied with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. High resolution spectra simultaneously containing cluster and molecular-monomer, featuring in both the valence and core-level Na 2p and Cl 2p regions, have been obtained. Cluster-level energy shifts of around 3 eV toward lower binding energy for Na 2p and ≈1 eV toward higher binding energy for Cl 2p relative to the monomer levels have been unambiguously established. To rationalize the core-level energy shifts of the nanoscale NaCl clusters, the ionic model taking into account all charge-charge and polarization interactions has been developed and implemented. A satisfactory agreement between the experimental and model results has been obtained. The model calculations have also shed additional light on the size- and site-specific cluster responses.

Gold-oxide-containing nanoparticles have been produced in a range of partial to full oxidation conditions, where the nanoparticle electronic structure and stoichiometry have been characterized. Our results indicate that with the increase of the oxidation degree in these nanoparticles the gold oxidation state possibly changes from lower oxides with mono- or divalent metal to the higher oxide with the trivalent gold. At intermediate oxidation conditions our observations are consistent with a radially segregated structure of such nanoparticleswith the core containing mainly oxide and the surface covered with few monolayers of metallic gold. These results have been possible to obtain combining the vapor aggregation method for the nanoparticle fabrication and synchrotron-based photoelectron spectroscopy for their characterization. The deposition of the oxidized nanoparticles has showed that the species assigned as containing lower oxide could be preserved in the landing and then studied on a substrate for a limited time. The possible lower oxide formation in nanoparticles is discussed in connection to the enhanced catalytic activity of gold nanoparticles.

The solvation of alkali-halides in water clusters at nanoscale is studied by photoelectron spectroscopy using synchrotron radiation. The Na 2p, K 3p, Cl 2p, Br 3d, and I 4d core level binding energies have been measured for salt-containing water clusters. The results have been compared to those of alkali halide clusters and the dilute aqueous salt solutions. It is found that the alkali halides dissolve in small water clusters as ions.

Chemical bonding of termination species in 2D carbides investigated through valence band UPS/XPS of Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene To cite this article: Lars-Åke Näslund et al 2021 2D Mater. 8 045026 View the article online for updates and enhancements.

In this paper we demonstrate how surface site specific experimental information can be obtained from free low nanometer scale clusters using photoelectron spectroscopy utilising synchrotron radiation. In addition, we show how it can be used to gain insight into the geometry and surface structure of the clusters. The present experiments were conducted on alkali metal halides, RbCl and CsCl, which were chosen as advantageous test cases due to their simple electronic and geometric structures. These heavy alkali metal salts provide additional clarity since the surface and bulk responses can be separated, which is not the case for clusters of lighter alkali metal salts. Computational chemical shift calculations and simple alkali halide cluster size modelling were used to interpret the experimental results.