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Science 7 February 2003:
Vol. 299. no. 5608, pp. 864 - 867
DOI: 10.1126/science.1079879
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Reports

Au20: A Tetrahedral Cluster

Jun Li,1 Xi Li,12 Hua-Jin Zhai,12 Lai-Sheng Wang12*

Photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that a 20-atom gold cluster has an extremely large energy gap, which is even greater than that of C60, and an electron affinity comparable with that of C60. This observation suggests that the Au20 cluster should be highly stable and chemically inert. Using relativistic density functional calculations, we found that Au20 possesses a tetrahedral structure, which is a fragment of the face-centered cubic lattice of bulk gold with a small structural relaxation. Au20 is thus a unique molecule with atomic packing similar to that of bulk gold but with very different properties.

1 W. R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Post Office Box 999, Richland, WA 99352, USA.
2 Department of Physics, Washington State University, 2710 University Drive, Richland, WA 99352, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ls.wang{at}pnl.gov.

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