Liquid-liquid phase coexistence in gold clusters: 2D or not 2D?

The thermodynamics of gold cluster anions (AuN-, N=11,...,14) is investigated using quantum molecular dynamics. Our simulations suggest that AuN- may exhibit a novel, freestanding planar liquid phase which dynamically coexists with a normal three-dimensional liquid. Upon cooling with experimentally realizable cooling rates, the entropy-favored three-dimensional liquid clusters often supercool and solidify into the "wrong" dimensionality. This indicates that experimental validation of theoretically predicted AuN- ground states might be more complicated than hitherto expected.