Search

Free neutral methanol clusters produced by adiabatic expansion have been studied by photoelectron spectroscopy and line shape modeling. The results show that clusters belonging to two distinct size regimes can be produced by changing the expansion conditions. While the larger size regime can be well described by line shapes calculated for clusters consisting of hundreds of molecules, the smaller size regime corresponds to methanol oligomers, predominantly of cyclic structure. There is little contribution from dimers to the spectra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mixed neutral molecular clusters have been produced by co-expansion of chloroform and methanol and characterized by carbon 1s photoelectron spectroscopy and theoretical modeling. The produced clusters are in the range 50–150 molecules and the clusters are not homogeneously mixed: chloroform is enriched in the bulk and methanol is found on or close to the surface. This is based on evidence from photoelectron depth profiling and molecular dynamics simulations of mixed clusters. The simulations suggest that methanol forms cyclic or linear oligomers in the surface layers of the mixed clusters. From thermodynamic models, the enrichment of methanol on the cluster surface can be rationalized from the difference in surface tension between the two pure components, which is connected to the qualitative differences in the respective bonding patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]