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"Butterfly-Shaped" Palladium Subnano Cluster Built in 3-D
"Butterfly-Shaped" Palladium Subnano Cluster Built in 3-D

A Japanese research team at The University of Tokyo produced a 3-D cluster molecule based on palladium. First, they created a "butterfly-shaped" Pd4 framewok, using an organosilicon compounds bearing the aromatic substitutents as both template and support for the palladium atoms. Then, using another template, they connected two "butterfly-shaped" Pd4 skeleton, via chlorine, into a Pd6 cluster based on edge-sharing tetrahedra. This strategy using organosilicons to design customized subnano-architectures may enable design of a range of functional materials and catalysts.