Computational and Experimental Studies of Isolated Mixed-Charge Complexes: From Amino Acids to Ionic Liquids

Counterion interactions are ubiquitous in the condensed phase, but isolated molecular systems containing counterion pairs have been poorly characterized in the gas-phase compared to isolated anionic and cationic systems. In this thesis, a new series of computational and experimental investigations of isolated mixed-charge ion clusters are presented. Alkali metal clusters are prototypical model systems for studying mixed ion-pair interactions.