Structures of manganese polysulfides: mass-selected photodissociation and density functional calculations

Abstract

Manganese polysulfide cations, MnS_x⁺ (x = 1–10), were studied with mass-selected photodissociation experiments and density functional calculations. We found that MnS⁺, MnS₂⁺ and MnS₃⁺ undergo dissociation at 355 nm by loss of S, S₂ and S₃, respectively. The dissociation of larger clusters is relatively complex because of the existence of multiple isomers and multiple dissociation channels. The geometric structures of the low-lying isomers found by theoretical calculations are consistent with the dissociation channels observed in the experiments. The dissociation of MnS_x⁺ clusters occurs mainly by breaking of the Mn–S bonds since they are weaker than the S–S bonds.