Charge-induced fragmentation of sodium clusters - art. no. 063401

The fission of highly charged sodium clusters with fissilities X > 1 is stu died by ab initio molecular dynamics. Na-24(4+) is found to undergo predomi nantly sequential Na-3(+) emission on a time scale of 1 ps, while Na-24(Q+) (5 less than or equal to Q less than or equal to 8) undergoes multifragmen tation on a time scale greater than or equal to0.1 ps, with Na+ increasingl y the dominant fragment as Q increases. All singly charged fragments Na-n() up to size n = 6 are observed. The observed fragment spectrum is, within statistical error, independent of the temperature T of the parent cluster f or T less than or equal to 1500 K. These findings are consistent with and e xplain recent trends observed experimentally.