Issue 15, 2024

Doubly charged dimers and trimers of heavy noble gases

Abstract

Many doubly charged heteronuclear dimers are metastable or even thermodynamically stable with respect to charge separation. Homonuclear dicationic dimers, however, are more difficult to form. He22+ was the first noble gas dimer predicted to be metastable and, decades later, observed. Ne22+ is the only other dicationic noble gas dimer that has been detected so far. Here, we present a novel approach to form fragile dicationic species, by post-ionization of singly charged ions that are embedded in helium nanodroplets (HNDs). Bare ions are then extracted by colliding the HNDs with helium gas. We detect homonuclear doubly charged dimers and trimers of krypton and xenon, but not argon. Our multi-reference ab initio calculations confirm the stability of Kr22+, Kr32+, Xe22+, Xe32+, and Ar22+, but put the stability of Ar32+ towards dissociation to Ar+ + Ar2+ into question.

Graphical abstract: Doubly charged dimers and trimers of heavy noble gases

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
31 Jan 2024
Accepted
21 Mar 2024
First published
23 Mar 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2024,26, 11482-11490

Doubly charged dimers and trimers of heavy noble gases

G. Schöpfer, S. Bergmeister, M. Ončák, I. Stromberg, M. Mahmoodi-Darian, P. Scheier, O. Echt and E. Gruber, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2024, 26, 11482 DOI: 10.1039/D4CP00465E

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