Laser ablation synthesis and TOF mass spectrometric identification of tellurium, sulfur and mixed tellurium-sulfur clusters

It was found that laser ablation of a mixture of elemental tellurium and sulfur is a possible way for synthesis of heteroatomic clusters. Four new cluster families with the composition TeSn(n = 1-14), Te2Sn(n = 1-10), Te3Sn(n = 1-6) and Te4Sn(n = 1-2) were produced with a negative or positive charge. Simultaneously, the formation of Te-n(+) and Te-n(-) (n = 1-6), S-n(+) (n = 1-11) and S-n(-) (n = 1-15) clusters was observed. Isotopic patterns of the clusters mass spectra were found to be in a good agreement with theoretical models calculated from natural abundance of tellurium and sulfur isotopes. However, in spite of a high resolution achieved (4000), some mixed clusters are difficult to distinguish, because TemSn cluster ions yield almost the same molecular weights and isotopic patterns as Tem-1Sn+4 ones. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.