Heavy N+ ion transfer in doubly charged N2Ar van der Waals cluster

XiaoLong Zhu; XiaoQing Hu; ShunCheng Yan; YiGeng Peng; WenTian Feng; DaLong Guo; Yong Gao; ShaoFeng Zhang; Amine Cassimi; JiaWei Xu; DongMei Zhao; DaPu Dong; Bang Hai; Yong Wu; JianGuo Wang; X Ma

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16749-w

Heavy N⁺ ion transfer in doubly charged N₂Ar van der Waals cluster

Nat Commun. 2020 Jun 12;11(1):2987. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16749-w.

Authors

XiaoLong Zhu^#^{1

2}, XiaoQing Hu^#³, ShunCheng Yan^{1

2}, YiGeng Peng³, WenTian Feng¹, DaLong Guo^{1

2}, Yong Gao¹, ShaoFeng Zhang^{1

2}, Amine Cassimi⁴, JiaWei Xu^{1

2}, DongMei Zhao¹, DaPu Dong^{1

2}, Bang Hai^{1

2}, Yong Wu^{5

6}, JianGuo Wang³, X Ma^{7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 730000, Lanzhou, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China.
³ Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, 100088, Beijing, China.
⁴ CIMAP, CEA/CNRS/ENSICAEN/UNICAEN, BP5133, 14070, Caen, France.
⁵ Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, 100088, Beijing, China. wu_yong@iapcm.ac.cn.
⁶ HEDPS, Center of Applied Physics and Technology, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China. wu_yong@iapcm.ac.cn.
⁷ Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 730000, Lanzhou, China. x.ma@impcas.ac.cn.
⁸ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China. x.ma@impcas.ac.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Van der Waals clusters are weakly bound atomic/molecular systems and are an important medium for understanding micro-environmental chemical phenomena in bio-systems. The presence of neighboring atoms may open channels otherwise forbidden in isolated atoms/molecules. In hydrogen-bond clusters, proton transfer plays a crucial role, which involves mass and charge migration over large distances within the cluster and results in its fragmentation. Here we report an exotic transfer channel involving a heavy N⁺ ion observed in a doubly charged cluster produced by 1 MeV Ne⁸⁺ ions: (N₂Ar)²⁺→N⁺+NAr⁺. The neighboring Ar atom decreases the [Formula: see text] barrier height and width, resulting in significant shorter lifetimes of the metastable molecular ion state [Formula: see text]([Formula: see text]). Consequently, the breakup of the covalent N⁺-N⁺ bond, the tunneling out of the N⁺ ion from the [Formula: see text] potential well, as well as the formation of an N-Ar⁺ bound system take place almost simultaneously, resulting in a Coulomb explosion of N⁺ and NAr⁺ ion pairs.