Structures of LiNH sub 2 Hexamers: Reply to comments by Clegg, Snaith and Wade.

In a recent paper on the study of ionic clusters, we reported the results of ab initio quantum chemical calculations on the hexamer of LiNH sub 2 and concluded that a distorted octahedral structure was considerably more stable than a planar hexagonal ring structure. Clegg, Snaith and Wade (CSW) have now suggested that the octahedral structure is unlikely to be the ground state of (LiNH sub 2) sub 6 and that it is "expected to form structures based on (LiN) sub n rings, with possible lateral association of these rings". We now report the results of additional calculations which show convincingly that the octahedral structure is indeed significantly more stable than the structures suggested by CSW. We also answer other criticisms of CSW regarding our work. Their comments as well as our original paper are included for reference.