Ionic bonding in free nanoscale NaCl clusters as seen by photoelectron spectroscopy

The free neutral nanoscale NaCl clusters have been produced in a beam and studied with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. High resolution spectra simultaneously containing cluster and molecular-monomer, featuring in both the valence and core-level Na 2p and Cl 2p regions, have been obtained. Cluster-level energy shifts of around 3 eV toward lower binding energy for Na 2p and ≈1 eV toward higher binding energy for Cl 2p relative to the monomer levels have been unambiguously established. To rationalize the core-level energy shifts of the nanoscale NaCl clusters, the ionic model taking into account all charge-charge and polarization interactions has been developed and implemented. A satisfactory agreement between the experimental and model results has been obtained. The model calculations have also shed additional light on the size- and site-specific cluster responses.