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........ published in NEWSLETTER # 58

LARGE CLUSTERS OF ATOMS AND MOLECULES
by Dr. T.P. Martin, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Festkorperforschung, Stuttgart (Germany)

In any subfield of condensed matter science one can ask the following question: What would happen to the effect I am interested in if the sample were reduced in size to 100 atoms? Whatever the effect, (it could be structure, magnetism, phase transition, optical behavior, chemical reactivity) such a nanoparticle can be expected to behave differently from the bulk. Recently, it has become possible to produce and characterize large clusters containing an exact, predetermined number of atoms. Through these efforts it has become clear that clusters containing even as many as 20.000 atoms cannot yet be considered as being tiny crystals. Their structure is often icosahedral. Their electrons are organized into shells rather than bands. In many respects the clusters behave more like giant atoms than solids.

This volume (NATO ASI SERIES E313) consists of tutorial chapters explaining the methods which have been developed for studying large clusters.
Reference books: B158, B283, C374, E313, E316

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