First Observation of Doubly Charged Negative Gold Cluster Ions

Abstract

Singly charged gold cluster anions in the size range n = 16–30 have been captured, stored and size selected in a Penning trap. After application of an electron beam doubly charged gold cluster anions have been observed for 20 ≤ n ≤ 30. To our knowledge this is the first observation of metal cluster dianions. The threshold appearance size is in good agreement with a simple charged sphere model. The application of argon gas pulses simultaneously with the electron beam is found to increase the production rate by an order of magnitude.