Silver Clusters and Silver Cluster/Ammonia Complexes

The chemistry and physics of small silver clusters are reviewed. Particular attention is directed towards establishing the electronic and geometric structure of silver clusters and linking these with their chemical properties in order to understand structure/reactivity correlations at a molecular level. In this regard we focus on silver cluster/ammonia complexes as a prototype for cluster association complexes. We include new data on the optical absorption spectra of silver clusters and their cations, Agn and Ag+ n (n = 4, 7, 9, 10 and 12) and on the infrared absorption spectra of silver cluster/ammonia complexes, Agn(NH3)m (n = 4 — 18, m =1, 2).