Fragmentation of small silicon clusters

✍ Scribed by Krishnan Raghavachari; Celeste McMichael Rohlfing

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 595 KB
• Volume: 143
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0009-2614
• DOI: 10.1016/0009-2614(88)87390-1

✦ Synopsis

Recently we have performed accurate ab initio molecular orbital calculations to study the structures and energies of small silicon clusters (Si,, n = 2-IO). In this work, the ground state binding energies of the clusters have been used to interpret the results of recent photofragmentation experiments on the ionic silicon clusters up to Si&. Fragmentation predominantly yields daughter ions which are energetically most stable, consistent with a unimolecular dissociation mechanism involving vibrationally excited clusters on the ground electronic potential surface. Clusters containing 6, 7 and 10 atoms have been identified as "magic fragments" for these photodissociation processes, consistent with the experimental results.