Albertini S, Bergmeister S, Laimer F, Martini P, Gruber E, Zappa F, Ončák M, Scheier P, Echt O. SF
6+: Stabilizing Transient Ions in Helium Nanodroplets.
J Phys Chem Lett 2021;
12:4112-4117. [PMID:
33886323 PMCID:
PMC8154854 DOI:
10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01024]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/05/2023]
Abstract
There are myriad ions that are deemed too short-lived to be experimentally accessible. One of them is SF6+. It has never been observed, although not for lack of trying. We demonstrate that long-lived SF6+ can be formed by doping charged helium nanodroplets (HNDs) with sulfur hexafluoride; excess helium is then gently stripped from the doped HNDs by collisions with helium gas. The ion is identified by high-resolution mass spectrometry (resolution m/Δm = 15000), the close agreement between the expected and observed yield of ions that contain minor sulfur isotopes, and collision-induced dissociation in which mass-selected HenSF6+ ions collide with helium gas. Under optimized conditions, the yield of SF6+ exceeds that of SF5+. The procedure is versatile and suitable for stabilizing many other transient molecular ions.
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