Interactions of CO with AunOm− (n ≥ 4)

The interactions between AunOm− (n ≥ 4) and CO are presented in a joint experimental and theoretical study. Experimental investigations reveal that oxygen in both the atomized and molecular forms adsorbs onto the gold clusters but shows no sign of an uptake pattern with cluster size. Furthermore, AunOm− with an odd number of oxygen atoms contain multiple CO molecules; however, in most cases, clusters with an even number of oxygen atoms are not observed to have multiple CO molecules attached. This is supported by theoretical investigations for the selected examples of Au4O2− and Au4O3−.