We have characterized the structures of Snₙ cations up to $n=68$ using ion mobility measurements. Up to n~35, tin clusters track the prolate growth pattern previously found for Siₙ and Geₙ. However, the detailed size-dependent variations start deviating from those observed for Siₙ above $n=14$ and Geₙ above $n=21.$ Over the n~35--65 size range, tin clusters gradually rearrange towards near-spherical geometries, passing through several intermediate structural families. Two or three isomers are resolved for some sizes in the $n=18--49$ range. The observed geometries are independent of the He buffer gas temperature between 78 and 378 K and are not affected by collisional annealing.
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Shvartsburg et al. (1999) studied this question.