Knowledge Bank

Trends in the vertical detachment energies of negatively charged water clusters are interpreted in terms of different structures for accommodation of the excess charge. Interpretation of the data has been aided by some elegant molecular $simulations1$ as well as intuition gained from calculations on the binding of excess electrons to dielectric $spheres1,2$. A plot of the vertical detachment energies vs. cluster size indicates three different regions which are interpreted as a progression from surface states for small cluster sizes, to internal states without cavities for intermediate cluster sizes, and internal states with cavities for the largest cluster sizes.