Neutral and negatively-charged formamide, N-methylformamide and dimethylformamide clusters Original Research Article

The structure and low energy electron attachment properties of small clusters of formamide, N-methylformamide and dimethylformamide have been studied. The experimental technique used is Rydberg electron transfer (RET) between laser-excited atoms and the molecular systems. The richness of hydrogen bonding possibilities of these three highly polar molecules leads to very different structures and resultant dipoles or quadrupoles which we determine by means of an empirical model. A corresponding wide variety of cluster anions is observed and interpreted, ranging from dipole-bound or quadrupole-bound anions in their ground state or first excited state to valence-type anions.