Structures and Superhalogen Properties of Pt2Cl n (2 ≤ n ≤ 10) Clusters.

Laser ablation mass spectrometry was applied to study the cluster anions of Pt2Cl n-. Among them, Pt2Cl6- and Pt2Cl9- were observed with remarkable intensities in the mass spectrum. Collision-activated dissociation experiments were also performed for the two anions. A systematic study of the structures and electron affinities (EAs) of Pt1-2Cl n (2 ≤ n ≤ 10) clusters was performed on the level of B3LYP/Lanl2dz/6-311++G(2d, p). For both systems, their EAs do not increase monotonically with the increase of Cl atoms. All the clusters of PtCl n (3 ≤ n ≤ 10) and Pt2Cl n (3 ≤ n ≤ 10) show EAs larger than that of the Cl atom. The highest EAs for the series of Pt2Cl n and PtCl n are 6.55 and 5.82 eV, corresponding to those of Pt2Cl9 and PtCl9, respectively. The results indicate that these clusters might be applied as effective units in constructing new "hypersalts".