Photodissociation of small group-14 atomic clusters in a multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer

Abstract

Cationic and anionic clusters of the group-14 elements carbon, silicon, germanium, tin, and lead are produced by high-vacuum laser ablation and studied with a multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer. In-trap photodissociation is performed for cluster species in the size range $$n =$$ n = 2–10. The clusters’ production rates as well as their dissociation pathways are used to probe the nonmetal–metal transition throughout the group. Carbon clusters show neutral-trimer break-off, while those of the other elements evaporate neutral monomers and, in some cases, form specific charged fragment sizes. Graphic abstract

Fragmentation channels of non-fullerene cationic carbon clusters

“…The fragmentation of cationic carbon clusters has been investigated previously by several excitation methods, such as UV-visible (multi-)photon absorption, [31][32][33][34][35][36] low-energy collisioninduced dissociation, 37 fast beam photo-fragment translational spectroscopy, 26 dissociative electron impact ionization, 38 surface-induced dissociation 39 and dissociation recombination. 40 The dominant fragmentation channel for neutral, cationic, and anionic carbon clusters is the release of a neutral trimer C 3 for the non-fullerene clusters of N o 32 and C 2 release for the fullerenes, which define the molecular structures for N 4 32.…”