Experimental determination of the ionization potentials of the first five members of the nanodiamond series.

The ionization potentials of size- and isomer-selected diamondoids (nanodiamond containing one to five crystal cages) have been measured by means of total-ion-yield spectroscopy. We find a monotonic decrease of the ionization potential with increasing diamondoid size. This experimental result is compared to recent theoretical predictions and comparable investigations on related carbon clusters, the fullerenes, which show isomer effects to be stronger than size dependence.