Michigan Technological
University
Department of Physics
with
Department of
Physics
Virginia
Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA
Atomic Clusters - A New
Source of Metastable Materials
When a plume of metallic vapor from any
source is allowed to cool, it initially
forms small clusters of atoms which later agglomerate to form the bulk material. However, with the growth in
size, the properties of the small
clusters do not change monotonically from the atom to the bulk. At certain sizes and geometries, these clusters
can be relatively stable. Using these
stable clusters as the building blocks, one can envisage the formation of metastable materials with
unusual properties, which can be
dictated through the manipulation of the size and structure of the
atomic clusters.
Thursday, September 20, 2001
4:00 p.m., Fisher 139
Refreshments
will be served