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Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 215508 (2003) [4 pages]

Hot and Solid Gallium Clusters: Too Small to Melt

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Gary A. Breaux, Robert C. Benirschke, Toshiki Sugai*, Brian S. Kinnear†, and Martin F. Jarrold‡
Chemistry Department, Indiana University, 800 East Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, Indiana 47405-7102, USA

Received 7 August 2003; published 21 November 2003

A novel multicollision induced dissociation scheme is employed to determine the energy content for mass-selected gallium cluster ions as a function of their temperature. Measurements were performed for Gan+ (n=17 39, and 40) over a 90–720 K temperature range. For Ga39+ and Ga40+ a broad maximum in the heat capacity—a signature of a melting transition for a small cluster—occurs at around 550 K. Thus small gallium clusters melt at substantially above the 302.9 K melting point of bulk gallium, in conflict with expectations that they will remain liquid to below 150 K. No melting transition is observed for Ga17+.

© 2003 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.215508
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.215508
PACS:
61.46.+w, 64.70.Dv

*Present address: Department of Chemistry, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan.

†Present address: Intel Corporation, Portland, OR.

‡Corresponding author.

Email address: mfj@indiana.edu

 
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