Cluster-size

Another important characteristic of the late stages of phase separation kinetics, for asynnnetric mixtures, is the cluster size distribution fimction of the minority phase clusters n(R,z)dR is the number of clusters of minority phase per unit volume with radii between R and + cW. Its zeroth moment gives the mean number of clusters at time r and the first moment is proportional to die mean cluster size. 

For a general dimension d, the cluster size distribution fiinction n(R, x) is defined such that n(R, x)dR equals the number of clusters per unit volume with a radius between andi + dR. Assuming no nucleation of new clusters and no coalescence, n(R, x) satisfies a continuity equation... 

Figure A3.3.11 The asymptotic cluster size distribution f(x) from LS analysis for

The microscopic understanding of tire chemical reactivity of surfaces is of fundamental interest in chemical physics and important for heterogeneous catalysis. Cluster science provides a new approach for tire study of tire microscopic mechanisms of surface chemical reactivity [48]. Surfaces of small clusters possess a very rich variation of chemisoriDtion sites and are ideal models for bulk surfaces. Chemical reactivity of many transition-metal clusters has been investigated [49]. Transition-metal clusters are produced using laser vaporization, and tire chemical reactivity studies are carried out typically in a flow tube reactor in which tire clusters interact witli a reactant gas at a given temperature and pressure for a fixed period of time. Reaction products are measured at various pressures or temperatures and reaction rates are derived. It has been found tliat tire reactivity of small transition-metal clusters witli simple molecules such as H2 and NH can vary dramatically witli cluster size and stmcture [48, 49, M and 52]. 

Figure Cl. 1.3 shows a plot of tire chemical reactivity of small Fe, Co and Ni clusters witli FI2 as a function of size (full curves) [53]. The reactivity changes by several orders of magnitudes simply by changing tire cluster size by one atom. Botli geometrical and electronic arguments have been put fortli to explain such reactivity changes. It is found tliat tire reactivity correlates witli tire difference between tire ionization potential (IP) and tire electron affinity...

Figure Cl.1.5. Nickel cluster magnetic moment per atom (p) as a function of cluster size, at temperatures between 73 and 198 K. Apsel S E, Emmert J W, Deng J and Bloomfield L A 1996 Phys. Rev. Lett. 76 1441, figure 1.

The simplest approach to understanding the reduced melting point in nanocrystals relies on a simple thennodynamic model which considers the volume and surface as separate components. Wliether solid or melted, a nanocrystal surface contains atoms which are not bound to interior atoms. This raises the net free energy of the system because of the positive surface free energy, but the energetic cost of the surface is higher for a solid cluster than for a liquid cluster. Thus the free-energy difference between the two phases of a nanocrystal becomes smaller as the cluster size... 

On the other hand, whenever AV exceeds the value of AVq the formation of a dense monolayer film appears to be the continuous process. It has been demonstrated that the observed crossover between those two regimes is due to the changes in the mechanism of the adsorbate nucleation, as determined by the calculation of the nucleated cluster size distribution functions. For... 

The cluster properties of the reactants in the MM model at criticality have been studied by Ziff and Fichthorn [89]. Evidence is given that the cluster size distribution is a hyperbolic function which decays with exponent r = 2.05 0.02 and that the fractal dimension (Z)p) of the clusters is Dp = 1.90 0.03. This figure is similar to that of random percolation clusters in two dimensions [37], However, clusters of the reactants appear to be more solid and with fewer holes (at least on the small-scale length of the simulations, L = 1024 sites). 

Such analytic approximations based on clusters of particles quickly become mathematically intractable with variation in cluster size, geometry, and range of interactions [12,13]. 

The practicality and accuracy of the present method depend on the following two factors (1) the inrpurity-cluster size and (2) the number of atomic configurations used... 

Impurity-cluster size nearest-neighbor approximation... 

It is seen that there exists a domain of d band-fillings Nchemical species. This domain narrows very rapidly when the cluster size increases. Consequently, outside this domain and in the range of stability of bulk FCC, i.e., when N 8.2e /atom, we predict that cluster adatoms sit always at normal sites irrespective of the size of the... 

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