Naked clusters of 56 tin atoms in the solid state

Svilen Bobev; Slavi C Sevov

doi:10.1021/ja012549j

Naked clusters of 56 tin atoms in the solid state

J Am Chem Soc. 2002 Apr 3;124(13):3359-65. doi: 10.1021/ja012549j.

Authors

Svilen Bobev¹, Slavi C Sevov

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.

PMID: 11916421
DOI: 10.1021/ja012549j

Abstract

Isolated, gigantic tin clusters of 56 atoms are discovered in the ternary compound Ba(16)Na(204)Sn(310) (cubic, F(-)43m, Z = 1, a = 25.2041(8) A) made by direct fusion of the elements at 800 degrees C. The cluster, made of four face-fused pentagonal dodecahedra, has 36 pentagonal faces and 90 edges, and resembles a concave fullerene "dented" at four places. It is made of three- and four-bonded tin atoms and is "stuffed" with four barium cations, [Ba(4)@Sn(56)](36-). This is the largest main group naked cluster in the solid state besides the fullerenes. Also occurring in the structure are two other isolated clusters of tin, Sn(16-n) (n = 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4) and Sn(8).