Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userA novel experimental method for the measurement of the caloric curves of clusters
110
0
0.0
(
0
)
Authors
Fabien Chirot
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
A novel experimental scheme has been developed in order to measure the heat capacity of mass selected clusters. It is based on controlled sticking of atoms on clusters. This allows one to construct the caloric curve, thus determining the melting temperature and the latent heat of fusion in the case of first-order phase transitions. This method is model-free. It is transferable to many systems since the energy is brought to clusters through sticking collisions. As an example, it has been applied to Na_90^+ and Na_140^+. Our results are in good agreement with previous measurements.
rate research
Read More
We show, with both experiment and theory, that adsorption of $CO_2$ is sensitive to charge on a capturing model carbonaceous surface. In the experiment we dope superfluid helium droplets with $C_{60}$ and $CO_2$ and expose them to ionising free electrons. Both positively and negatively charged $C_{60}(CO_2)_n^{+/-}$ cluster ion distributions are observed with a high-resolution mass spectrometer and these show remarkable and reproducible anomalies in intensities that are strongly dependent on the charge. The highest adsorption capacity is seen with $C_{60}^+$. Complementary density functional theory calculations and molecular dynamics simulations provided insight into the nature of the interaction of charged $C_{60}$ with $CO_2$ as well as trends in the packing of $C_{60}^+$ and $C_{60}^-$. The quadrupole moment of $CO_2$ itself was seen to be decisive in determining the charge dependence of the observed adsorption features. Our findings are expected to apply to adsorption of $CO_2$ by charged surfaces in general.
The rare-earths are known to have intriguing changes of the valence, depending on chemical surrounding or geometry. Here we make predictions from theory that combines density functional theory with atomic multiplet-theory, on the transition of valence when transferring from the atomic divalent limit to the trivalent bulk, passing through different sized clusters, of selected rare-earths. We predict that Tm clusters show an abrupt change from pure divalent to pure trivalent at a size of 6 atoms, while Sm and Tb clusters are respectively pure divalent and trivalent up to 8 atoms. Larger Sm clusters are argued to likely make a transition to a mixed valent, or trivalent, configuration. The valence of all rare-earth clusters, as a function of size, is predicted from interpolation of our calculated results. We argue that the here predicted behavior is best analyzed by spectroscopic measurements, and provide theoretical spectra, based on dynamical mean field theory, in the Hubbard-I approximation, to ease experimental analysis.
Together with the second generation REBO reactive potential, replica-exchange molecular dynamics simulations coupled with systematic quenching were used to generate a broad set of isomers for neutral C$_n$ clusters with $n=24$, 42, and 60. All the minima were sorted in energy and analyzed using order parameters to monitor the evolution of their structural and chemical properties. The structural diversity measured by the fluctuations in these various indicators is found to increase significantly with energy, the number of carbon rings, especially 6-membered, exhibiting a monotonic decrease in favor of low-coordinated chains and branched structures. A systematic statistical analysis between the various parameters indicates that energetic stability is mainly driven by the amount of sp$^2$ hybridization, more than any geometrical parameter. The astrophysical relevance of these results is discussed in the light of the recent detection of C$_{60}$ and C$_{60}^+$ fullerenes in the interstellar medium.
Feynman-Hibbs (FH) effective potentials constitute an appealing approach for investigations of many-body systems at thermal equilibrium since they allow us to easily include quantum corrections within standard classical simulations. In this work we apply the FH formulation to the study of Ne$_N$-coronene clusters ($N=$ 1-4, 14) in the 2-14 K temperature range. Quadratic (FH2) and quartic (FH4) contributions to the effective potentials are built upon Ne-Ne and Ne-coronene analytical potentials. In particular, a new corrected expression for the FH4 effective potential is reported. FH2 and FH4 cluster energies and structures -obtained from energy optimization through a basin-hoping algorithm as well as classical Monte Carlo simulations- are reported and compared with reference path integral Monte Carlo calculations. For temperatures $T> 4$ K, both FH2 and FH4 potentials are able to correct the purely classical calculations in a consistent way. However, the FH approach fails at lower temperatures, especially the quartic correction. It is thus crucial to assess the range of applicability of this formulation and, in particular, to apply the FH4 potentials with great caution. A simple model of $N$ isotropic harmonic oscillators allows us to propose a means of estimating the cut-off temperature for the validity of the method, which is found to increase with the number of atoms adsorbed on the coronene molecule.
Most theoretical investigations about titanium oxide clusters focus on (TiO$_2$)$_n$. However, many Ti$_n$O$_m$ clusters with $m eq 2n$ are produced experimentally. In this work, first-principles calculations are performed to probe the evolution of Ti$_n$O$_m$ clusters. Our investigations show that for $n=3$-$11$, there exist one relatively stable specie; while for $n=12$-$18$, there are two relatively stable species: Ti-rich and O-rich species. HOMO-LOMO calculations show that the gap can be tuned by changing the size and configurations of Ti$_n$O$_m$ clusters. Our investigation provides insights into the evolution of cluster-to-bulk process in titanium oxide.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
