Mass spectrometric study of Ag’s clustering ability with O, S and Se

Abstract

Samples Ag/O/S, Ag/O/Se and Ag/S/Se were ablated directly by laser to produce clusters. The detection was performed with a time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF MS). The cluster ions produced had the following distribution: Ag/S binary cluster ions for sample Ag/O/S, Ag/Se binary cluster ions for sample Ag/O/Se, and Ag/Se binary cluster ions and Ag/S/Se ternary cluster ions as the main products for sample Ag/S/Se. Laser double ablation reactor was used to study the reaction between Ag/S(Se, O) binary clusters and Se(S) homoclusters. The experiments show that Se clusters can replace S and O in Ag/S and Ag/O clusters while S clusters can replace O in Ag/O clusters. This fact indicates the sequence of the clustering ability of Ag presented as follows: Ag/Se > Ag/S > Ag/O, which was also proved by theoretical calculation. The reason of this tendency was considered to be the different abilities of the elements’ polarization, which acts on the stability of clusters.