https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules26123484">
 

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Complexes of atomic gold with a variety of ligands have been formed by passing helium nanodroplets (HNDs) through two pickup cells containing gold vapor and the vapor of another dopant, namely a rare gas, diatomic molecule (H2, N2, O2, I2, P2), or various polyatomic molecules (H2O, CO2, SF6, C6H6, adamantane, imidazole, di-cyclopentadiene, and fullerene). The doped HNDs were irradiated by electrons; ensuing cations were identified in a high-resolution mass spectrometer. Anions were detected for benzene, di-cyclopentadiene, and fullerene. For most ligands L, the abundance distribution of AuLn+ versus size n displays a remarkable enhancement at n = 2. The propensity towards bisligand formation is attributed to the formation of covalent bonds in Au+L2 which adopt a dumbbell structure,
L-Au+-L, as previously found for L = Xe and C60. Another interesting observation is the effect of gold on the degree of ionization-induced intramolecular fragmentation. For most systems gold enhances the fragmentation, i.e. intramolecular fragmentation in AuLn+ is larger than in pure Ln+. Hydrogen, on the other hand, behaves differently, intramolecular fragmentation in Au(H2)n+ is weaker than in pure (H2)n+ by an order of magnitude.

Department

Physics

Publication Date

6-8-2021

Journal Title

Molecules

Language

English

Publisher

MDPI AG Basel

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules26123484

Document Type

Article

Rights

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Comments

This article belongs to the Special Issue Gold Coordination Chemistry and Applications

This is an Open Access article published by MDPI in Molecules in 2021, available online: https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26123484

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