Beam generation and structural optimization of size-selected Au923 clusters

Siqi Lu; Kuojuei Hu; Zewen Zuo; Shengyong Hu; Guanghou Wang; Fengqi Song; Lu Cao

doi:10.1039/d0na00304b

Beam generation and structural optimization of size-selected Au₉₂₃ clusters

Nanoscale Adv. 2020 May 18;2(7):2720-2725. doi: 10.1039/d0na00304b. eCollection 2020 Jul 14.

Authors

Siqi Lu^{1

2}, Kuojuei Hu^{1

2}, Zewen Zuo^{1

2}, Shengyong Hu^{1

2}, Guanghou Wang^{1

2}, Fengqi Song^{1

2}, Lu Cao^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, School of Physics, Nanjing University Nanjing 210093 China songfengqi@nju.edu.cn caolu@nju.edu.cn.
² Atomic Manufacture Institute (AMI) 211805 Nanjing China.

Abstract

A size-selected beam of Au_923±20 clusters is generated in a gas-phase condensation cluster source equipped with a lateral time-of-flight mass selector. The beam current reaches up to 9.13 nA for small clusters and 80 pA for Au_923±20 clusters, which are then analyzed using a scanning transmission electron microscope. Four types of metastable structures are observed for the Au_923±20 clusters, including ino-decahedron (Dh), cuboctahedron and icosahedron (Ih). The proportion of bulk-favorable cuboctahedron (i.e. face center cubic (Fcc)) structure takes up only 10-20%, while the penta-rotating symmetrical structures (Dh/Ih) are the dominant ones which take up over three quarters. Changing the beam condition may optimize the clusters from Dh-dominant to the Ih-dominant phase, which paves the way towards nanoparticle control beyond the diameters.