Structures of manganese polysulfides: mass-selected photodissociation and density functional calculations.

Manganese polysulfide cations, MnS(x)(+) (x = 1-10), were studied with mass-selected photodissociation experiments and density functional calculations. We found that MnS(+), MnS(2)(+) and MnS(3)(+) undergo dissociation at 355 nm by loss of S, S(2) and S(3), respectively. The dissociation of larger clusters is relatively complex because of the existence of multiple isomers and multiple dissociation channels. The geometric structures of the low-lying isomers found by theoretical calculations are consistent with the dissociation channels observed in the experiments. The dissociation of MnS(x)(+) clusters occurs mainly by breaking of the Mn-S bonds since they are weaker than the S-S bonds.