Observation of negative electron-binding energy in a molecule

In neutral atoms and molecules, electrons are kept within their orbitals by attractive electrostatic interactions with positively charged nuclei, with relatively few neutral molecules being able to bind more than one extra electron. For multiply charged molecular anions, dynamic stability plays an important role: the superposition of long-range Coulomb repulsion and short-range electron binding gives rise to a repulsive Coulomb barrier (RCB) that traps the excess electrons1. The RCB has profound effects on the physical and chemical properties of multiply charged anions in the gas phase1,2,3,4,5. For example, it has recently been shown to prevent the detachment of electrons from a doubly charged anion, even when the excitation energies exceed the electron binding energy6,7. Here we report photodetachment experiments which demonstrate that the RCB can even trap electrons in molecular orbitals characterized by a negative binding energy. We show that the addition of sulphonate groups (–SO3−) to cyclic copper phthalocyanine (CuPc; ref. 8) systematically increases the energy of the corresponding molecular orbitals, culminating in the highest occupied molecular orbital of the tetra-anion, [CuPc(SO3)4]4−, being unstable by 0.9 eV. The increase in molecular orbital energy and the negative electron binding energy we observe are due to charge localization in the sulphonate groups and the resultant RCB. The unusually large height of the repulsive barrier also ensures that the anion remains metastable, and continues to store 0.9 eV excess electrostatic energy, throughout the 400 seconds we are able to observe it.