Thermodynamical properties of ionized lithium oxide clusters, Li2<i>n</i>+<i>p</i>O+<i>n</i>

Abstract

Lithium oxide clusters Li2n+pOn+ are generated by combining reactive nucleation in a gas aggregation source and photoionization. Unimolecular dissociation of mass selected cluster ions provides evidence that the excess of metal atoms evaporates first leading to the most stable species Li+(Li2O)n, which then evaporate Li2O molecules. The evaporation rate behavior as a function of cluster size demonstrates that Li+(Li2O)n can be prepared with different temperatures. It is discussed how metal evaporation from metal-rich oxide clusters leads to oxygen saturated clusters with a lower temperature. An estimate of the dissociation energies of Li+(Li2O)n are given for small sizes n≤10 from photoevaporation experiment.