Synthesis of mixed hypermetallic oxide BaOCa+ from laser-cooled reagents in an atom-ion hybrid trap
Abstract
The periodic table is an excellent predictor of element ratios in chemical compounds that form at temperatures that we commonly experience, give or take a factor of 10. Strange things start happening at hot and cold extremes, though. Puri et al. take advantage of extreme cold to observe the formation of the BaOCa+ ion, an electron-deficient alternative to conventional binary barium or calcium oxides. They first prepared cold barium methoxide ions and then exposed them to calcium atoms cooled to thousandths of a kelvin. Mass spectral and theoretical analyses revealed a barrierless reaction pathway in which triplet-state calcium displaces the methyl group.
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- September 2017
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.aan4701
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1709.02399
- Bibcode:
- 2017Sci...357.1370P
- Keywords:
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- CHEMISTRY;
- Physics - Atomic Physics;
- Physics - Chemical Physics
- E-Print:
- 23 pages, 4 figures