The structures of small gold cluster anions as determined by a combination of ion mobility measurements and density functional calculations

A combined experimental and theoretical study of small gold cluster anions is performed. The experimental effort consists of ion mobility measurements that lead to the assignment of the collision cross sections for the different cluster sizes at room temperature. The theoretical study is based on ab initio molecular dynamics calculations with the goal to find energetically favorable candidate structures. By comparison of the theoretical results with the measured collision cross sections as well as vertical detachment energies (VDEs) from the literature, we assign structures for the small Aun− ions (n