Study of small carbon and semiconductor clusters using negative ion threshold photodetachment spectroscopy

Abstract

The bonding and electronics of several small carbon and semiconductor clusters containing less than ten atoms are probed using negative ion threshold photodetachment (zero electron kinetic energy, or ZEKE) spectroscopy. ZEKE spectroscopy is a particularly advantageous technique for small cluster study, as it combines mass selection with good spectroscopic resolution. The ground and low-lying electronic states of small clusters in general can be accessed by detaching an electron from the ground anion state. The clusters studied using this technique and described in this work are C6-/C6, Sin-/Sin (n = 2, 3, 4), Ge2-/Ge2, In2P-/In2P,InP2-/InP2, and Ga2As-. The total photodetachment cross sections of several other small carbon clusters and the ZEKE spectrum of the I-•CH3I SN2 reaction complex are also presented to illustrate the versatility of the experimental apparatus. Clusters with so few atoms do not exhibit bulk properties. However, each specie exhibits bonding properties that relate to the type of bonding found in the bulk. C6, as has been predicted, exhibits a linear cumulenic structure, where double bonds connect all six carbon atoms. This double bonding reflects how important π bonding is in certain phases of pure carbon (graphite and fullerenes). The symmetric stretch frequencies observed in the C6- spectra, however, are in poor agreement with the calculated values. Also observed as sharp structure in total photodetachment cross section scans was an excited anion state bound by only ~40 cm-1 relative to the detachment continuum. This excited anion state appears to be a valence bound state, possible because of the high electron affinity of C6, and the open shell of the anion.