Protonated Clusters of Neon and Krypton

TL;DR

This paper investigates the properties of protonated and cationic clusters of neon and krypton, revealing similarities with argon and unique magic size patterns, contributing to understanding rare gas cluster behaviors.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the magic sizes and structural similarities of protonated and cationic clusters of neon and krypton, highlighting differences from lighter rare gases.

Findings

Neon clusters behave similarly to argon in protonated form.

Cationic krypton shares magic numbers with its protonated clusters.

Distinct magic size patterns are observed compared to lighter rare gases.

Abstract

We present a study of cationic and protonated clusters of neon and krypton. Recent studies using argon have shown that protonated rare gas clusters can have very different magic sizes than pure, cationic clusters. Here we find that neon behaves similarly to argon, but that the cationic krypton is more similar to its protonated counterparts than the lighter rare gases are, sharing many of the same magic numbers.