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Si 60 , an Analogue of C 60 ?
Author(s) -
Zybill Christian
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition in english
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 0570-0833
DOI - 10.1002/anie.199201731
Subject(s) - fullerene , silicon , microelectronics , miniaturization , semiconductor , chemical physics , cluster (spacecraft) , nanotechnology , chemistry , crystallography , materials science , computational chemistry , optoelectronics , organic chemistry , computer science , programming language
Bearing in mind the further miniaturization in microelectronics and the possibility of discovering new materials, as was the case with the fullerenes, many research groups are at present studying clusters of semiconductor elements like silicon. Reactions of mass‐selected Si n clusters with reactive gases such as ethylene and subsequent analysis of the products provide information on the structures of these complexes. Thus for instance, Si 10 does not have the adamantane structure expected from the structure of elemental silicon, but a compact structure (two calculated structures of almost the same energy are depicted for Si 10 ) with fewer free valencies at the Si atoms. There is no evidence for a “round Si 60 chemistry” analogous to that of C 60 , although Si 60 represents a stability maximum (calculated structure depicted to the right). A direct structure determination will probably remain elusive for some time, because the absolute stability of Si 60 is orders of magnitude smaller than that of C 60 .