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Coinage metal clusters are of great importance for a wide range of scientific fields, ranging from microscopy to catalysis. Despite their clear fundamental and technological importance, the experimental structural determination of copper clusters has attracted little attention. We fill this gap by elucidating the structure of cationic copper clusters through infrared (IR) photodissociation spectroscopy of Cu n + -Ar m complexes. Structures of Cu n + (n = 3-10) are unambiguously assigned based on the comparison of experimental IR spectra in the 70-280 cm -1 spectral range with spectra calculated using density functional theory. Whereas Cu 3 + and Cu 4 + are planar, starting from n = 5, Cu n +... 

Argon is often considered as an innocent probe that can be attached and detached to study the structure of a particular species without perturbing the species too much. We have investigated whether this assumption also holds for small copper cationic clusters and demonstrated that small but significant charge transfer from argon to metal changes the remaining binding positions, leading in general, to weaker binding of other argon atoms. The exception is binding to just one copper ion, where the binding of the first argon facilitates the binding of the second. © 2020 American Chemical Society