Gas-phase ion mobilities and structures of benzene cluster cations (C6H6)n+, n = 2-6

Benzene clusters are generated by pulsed supersonic beam expansion, ionized by electron impact, mass-selected and then injected into a drift cell for ion mobility measurements in a helium buffer gas. The measured collision cross sections and theoretical calculations are used to determine the structures of the cluster cations (C(6)H(6))(n)(+) with n = 2-6. Density functional theory calculation, at an all-electron level and without any symmetry constraint, predicts that the dimer cation has two nearly degenerate ground state structures with the sandwich configuration more stable than the T-configuration by only 0.07 eV. The ion mobility experiment indicates that only one structure is observed for the mass-selected dimer cation at room temperature. The calculated cross section for the sandwich structure agrees very well (within 2.4%) with the experimental value. For the n = 3-6 clusters, the experiments suggest the presence of at least two structural isomers for each cluster. A Monte Carlo minimum-energy search technique using the 12-site OPLS potential for benzene is used to determine the structures of the lowest-energy isomers. The calculated cross sections for the two lowest-energy isomers of the n = 3-6 clusters agree well with the experimental results. The clusters' structures reveal two different growth patterns involving a sandwich dimer core or a pancake trimer stack core. The lowest-energy isomers of the n = 3-6 clusters incorporate the pancake trimer stack as the cluster's core. The trimer stack allows the charge to hop between two dimers, thus maximizing charge resonance interaction in the clusters. For larger clusters, the appearance of magic numbers at n = 14, 20, 24, 27, and 30 is consistent with the incorporation of a sandwich dimer cation within icosahedral, double icosahedral, and interpenetrating icosahedral structures. On the basis of the ion mobility results and the structural calculations, the parallel-stacked motif among charged aromatic-aromatic interactions is expected to play a major role in determining the structures of multi aromatic components. This conclusion may provide new insights for experimental and theoretical studies of molecular design and recognition involving aromatic systems.