Issue 12, 2016

Competition between drum and quasi-planar structures in RhB18: motifs for metallo-boronanotubes and metallo-borophenes

Abstract

Metal-doped boron clusters provide new opportunities to design nanoclusters with interesting structures and bonding. A cobalt-doped boron cluster, CoB18, has been observed recently to be planar and can be viewed as a motif for metallo-borophenes, whereas the D9d drum isomer as a motif for metallo-boronanotubes is found to be much higher in energy. Hence, whether larger doped boron drums are possible is still an open question. Here we report that for RhB18 the drum and quasi-planar structures become much closer in energy and co-exist experimentally, revealing a competition between the metallo-boronanotube and metallo-borophene structures. Photoelectron spectroscopy of RhB18 shows a complicated spectral pattern, suggesting the presence of two isomers. Quantum chemistry studies indicate that the D9d drum isomer and a quasi-planar isomer (Cs) compete for the global minimum. The enhanced stability of the drum isomer in RhB18 is due to the less contracted Rh 4d orbitals, which can have favorable interactions with the B18 drum motif. Chemical bonding analyses show that the quasi-planar isomer of RhB18 is aromatic with 10 π electrons, whereas the observed RhB18 drum cluster sets a new record for coordination number of eighteen among metal complexes. The current finding shows that the size of the boron drum can be tuned by appropriate metal dopants, suggesting that even larger boron drums with 5d, 6d transition metal, lanthanide or actinide metal atoms are possible.

Graphical abstract: Competition between drum and quasi-planar structures in RhB18−: motifs for metallo-boronanotubes and metallo-borophenes

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
15 Jun 2016
Accepted
25 Jul 2016
First published
25 Jul 2016
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2016,7, 7020-7027

Competition between drum and quasi-planar structures in RhB18: motifs for metallo-boronanotubes and metallo-borophenes

T. Jian, W. Li, X. Chen, T. Chen, G. V. Lopez, J. Li and L. Wang, Chem. Sci., 2016, 7, 7020 DOI: 10.1039/C6SC02623K

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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