https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2016-70475-y
Regular Article
Effect of a localized charge on the stability of Van der Waals clusters
1 Department of Natural Sciences, The
Open University of Israel, 4353701
Raanana,
Israel
2 Department Physics and Institute of
Nanotechnology, Bar Ilan University, 5290002
Ramat-Gan,
Israel
3 Tianjin International Center of
Nanoparticles and Nanosystems, Tianjin University, Tianjin
300072, P.R.
China
4 Department of Physics, University of
Gothenburg, 41296
Gothenburg,
Sweden
5 Department of Particle Physics and
Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100
Rehovot,
Israel
a email: yonitoker@gmail.com
Received:
27
July
2016
Received in final form:
25
September
2016
Published online:
8
December
2016
The stability of anionic (SF6)-N clusters (in the range of N< 23), generated in a supersonic expansion ion source with electron impact ionization, was investigated by measuring their blackbody induced radiative dissociation (BIRD) rates in an electrostatic ion beam trap (EIBT) at room temperature. The lifetime traces of EIBT-stored clusters were subjected to “master equation analysis” and the activation energies, Ea, for the evaporation of a SF6 monomer were extracted. We find that the decay rates of (SF6)-N anionic clusters are larger than those of cationic SF+5(SF6)N-1 measured previously by the same method, and their corresponding activation energies to be smaller. These observations provide further insight into the effect of localized charge on cluster stability.
Key words: Clusters and Nanostructures
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2016