Neutral silicon clusters have attracted much attention recently due to their possible applications in nano electronics. They have been subject to various experimental and theoretical investigations.1–3 Most recently, silicon clusters with 6–10 and 15 atoms have been characterized by Haertelt et al. applying different IR techniques to xenon tagged and bare silicon clusters.4 This study has inspired the electric molecular beam deflection experiments of silicon clusters presented here. We confirm independently the proposed structure for Si8 and make a suggestion for the yet unknown structure of Si11.
The experimental setup is reported in detail elsewhere and we give only a brief description here.5 Silicon clusters are produced in a laser vaporization source. They are cooled by a helium pulse and expanded through a cryogenic nozzle (Tnozzle = 35 K) into a high vacuum chamber where a molecular beam is formed. It passes...
