To Achieve Stable Spherical Clusters:  General Principles and Experimental Confirmations

Abstract

General principles for designing stable highly symmetrical clusters are proposed. This approach takes advantage of both the extra stability of cage aromaticity and the good geometrical balance between the outer cage and the endohedral atom. The applicability of these design principles was confirmed by gas-phase experimental observations on group 14 element cages with endohedral Al's and also is illustrated by many literature examples of diverse systems.

Photoelectron velocity-map imaging signature of structural evolution of silver-doped lead Zintl anions

“…Most of this work has involved the heavy Group 14 element species with the magic cluster size number of 10 and 12. [10][11][12][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] The Co@Ge 10 3− and Fe@Ge 10 3− clusters 30,31 feature an encapsulated pentagonal prismatic structure (D 5h ), whereas the isoelectronic Ni@Pb 10 2− cluster 28,29 prefers the encapsulated bicapped square antiprism structure (D 4d ). Gas phase experiments show that the stannaspherene (Sn 12 2− ) and plumbaspherene (Pb 12 2− ) cages can trap the main-group and transition metals or the f-block elements except of potassium.…”

Experimental and Theoretical Investigations of the Thermodynamic Stability of Ba−C60 and K−C60 Compound Clusters

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] For example, chemically inert clusters may be ideal building blocks for tailored nanomaterials. Thus, it is important to uncover general principles which may be used to explain enhanced cluster stability and to understand how the experimental conditions affect which superstable (magic) clusters are produced.…”

Medium-sized double magic metal clusters: Al@Cu54− and Al@Ag54−

“…[52][53][54][55] These core-shell metal clusters are predicted to be stable due to the "spherical aromaticity" of the shell as well as the geometric compatibility between the shell and the core. 5 In this paper, we report a theoretical prediction of two medium-sized double magic metal clusters of the first type, namely, the bimetallic core-shell clusters I h -Al@M 54 − ͑M =Cu,Ag͒. In addition, we show that icosahedral cluster I h -Al@Au 54 − is a high-energy isomer.…”

“…3, 4 Chen et al recently proposed a viable way to design highly stable clusters based on both geometric factor ͑compact packing͒ and electronic factor ͑spherical aromaticity͒. 5 Clusters with both closed electronic shell and the icosahedral symmetry have been coined as the "double magic" clusters. 6,7 Known examples of double magic metal clusters are the icosahedral cluster I h -Al 13 − ͑Ref.…”