Loginov Evgeny, Gomez Luis F, Sartakov Boris G, Vilesov Andrey F
Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California , Los Angeles, California 90089, United States.
Prokhorov General Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences , Vavilov Street, 38, 119991 Moscow, Russia.
J Phys Chem A. 2017 Aug 17;121(32):5978-5982. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpca.7b05136. Epub 2017 Aug 2.
Ethane core-silver shell clusters consisting of several thousand particles have been assembled in helium droplets upon capture of ethane molecules followed by Ag atoms. The composite clusters were studied via infrared laser spectroscopy in the range of the C-H stretching vibrations of ethane. The spectra reveal a splitting of the vibrational bands, which is ascribed to interaction with Ag. A rigorous analysis of band intensities for a varying number of trapped ethane molecules and Ag atoms indicates that the composite clusters consist of a core of ethane that is covered by relatively small Ag clusters. This metastable structure is stabilized due to fast dissipation in superfluid helium droplets of the cohesion energy of the clusters.