[B30]-: A Quasiplanar Chiral Boron Cluster

Chirality is vital in chemistry. Its importance in atomic clusters has been recognized since the discovery of the first chiral fullerene, the D-2 symmetric C-76.([1]) A number of gold clusters have been found to be chiral,([2]) raising the possibility to use them as asymmetric catalysts. The discovery of clusters with enantiomeric structures is essential to design new chiral materials with tailored chemical and physical properties.([3]) Herein we report the first inherently chiral boron cluster of [B-30](-) in a joint photoelectron spectroscopy and theoretical study. The most stable structure of [B-30](-) is found to be quasiplanar with a hexagonal hole. Interestingly, a pair of enantiomers arising from different positions of the hexagonal hole are found to be degenerate in our global minimum searches and both should co-exist experimentally because they have identical electronic structures and give rise to identical simulated photoelectron spectra.