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Self‐Assembly of Iodine in Superfluid Helium Droplets: Halogen Bonds and Nanocrystals
Author(s) -
He Yunteng,
Zhang Jie,
Lei Lei,
Kong Wei
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201611922
Subject(s) - nanocrystal , superfluid helium 4 , halogen , superfluidity , materials science , iodine , nanotechnology , self assembly , halogen bond , helium , chemical physics , condensed matter physics , crystallography , chemistry , physics , organic chemistry , metallurgy , alkyl
Abstract We present evidence of halogen bond in iodine clusters formed in superfluid helium droplets based on results from electron diffraction. Iodine crystals are known to form layered structures with intralayer halogen bonds, with interatomic distances shorter than the sum of the van der Waals radii of the two neighboring atoms. The diffraction profile of dimer dominated clusters embedded in helium droplets reveals an interatomic distance of 3.65 Å, much closer to the value of 3.5 Å in iodine crystals than to the van der Waals distance of 4.3 Å. The profile from larger iodine clusters deviates from a single layer structure; instead, a bi‐layer structure qualitatively fits the experimental data. This work highlights the possibility of small halogen bonded iodine clusters, albeit in a perhaps limited environment of superfluid helium droplets. The role of superfluid helium in guiding the trapped molecules into local potential minima awaits further investigation.