Dissociation and fission of small sodium and strontium clusters

Fission of charged small sodium and strontium clusters has been studied by the ab initio density functional theory methods. Dissociation energies and fission barriers have been calculated for all possible fission channels for the Na₁₀²⁺ and Sr₇²⁺ clusters. The dissociation energies and fission barriers have been analyzed as functions of the daughter fragment size.     

Collectivity of plasmon excitations in small sodium clusters with planar structure

The collectivity of the electronic motion in small sodium clusters with planar structure is studied by the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT). The formation and development of collective resonances in the absorption spectra were obtained as the function of the size and shape of the plane. We find the symmetry plays an important role in the collective excitation. Resonance peaks increase with the reduction of the symmetries and, on the contrary, resonance peaks decrease with the increase of the symmetries. In the planar cluster, there are two main excitation modes: the higher-energy mode and the competitive mode, which is due to the coupling and competition of the quasi-lower-energy effect and the quasi-higher-energy effect. With the increase of the interatomic distance, peaks of the absorption spectra are all red-shifted and the evolutionary trend is also discussed.     

Structure and melting of dipole clusters

Two-dimensional microclusters made up of particles repelled by the dipole law and confined by an external quadratic potential are considered. The model describes a number of physical systems, in particular, electrons in semiconductor structures near a metallic electrode, indirect excitons in coupled semiconductor dots etc. Two competing types of particle ordering in clusters have been revealed: formation of a triangular lattice and of a shell structure. Equilibrium configurations of clusters with N=1–40 particles are calculated. Temperature dependences of the structure, potential energy, and mean-square radial and angular displacements are studied. These characteristics are used to investigate cluster melting. Melting occurs in one or two stages, depending on N. Melting of a two-shell microcluster takes place in two stages: at low temperatures—from the frozen phase to a state with rotationally reoriented “crystalline” shells with respect to one another, followed by a transition involving breakdown of radial order. Melting in a cluster made up of a larger number of shells occurs in one stage. This is due to the fact that the potential barrier to intershell rotation is substantially lower than that to particle jumping from one shell to another for small N, and of the same order of magnitude for large N. A method is proposed for predicting the character of melting in shell clusters by comparing the potential barriers for shell rotation and intershell particle jumping. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 40, 1379–1386 (July 1998)     

Structure and melting of dipole clusters

Two-dimensional clusters of particles, repelling due to dipole-dipole interactions and confined by an external parabolic potential, are considered. The model describes different physical systems, particularly electrons in semiconductor structures, or electrons above a drop of He near a metal electrode, a drop of colloid liquid etc. Two kinds of ordering are in competition in the clusters: a triangular lattice and a shell structure. The ground-state configurations corresponding to the local and global minima of the potential energy for clusters with N = 1 – 40 “particles” are calculated. The structure, the potential energy and the radial and angular r.m.s. displacements as functions of temperature are also calculated. Analysing these quantities the melting of clusters is studied. One- or two-stage melting occurs depending on the number of particles in the cluster. In the case of clusters consisting of two shells melting has two stages: at lower temperature reorientation of neighbouring shells (“orientational melting”) arises; at much higher temperatures the radial shell order disappears. In clusters consisting of more than two shells total melting occurs as a first-order one-stage transition (analogously to a dipole crystal). This is connected with the barrier of rotation being less than the barrier of interchange of particles between shells for small microclusters while the barriers are of equal order for clusters with a greater number of particles.     

Plasma oscillations in oxide free Al clusters

Plasma oscillations in oxide free Al clusters with radii of the order 10 Å are excited by 50 keV electrons. Only surface plasma oscillations are observed. Results are in excellent agreement with the hydrodynamic theory put forward by Fujimoto and Komaki. This theory is for the first time quantitatively confirmed.     

Plasmon oscillations in ellipsoid nanoparticles: Beyond dipole approximation

The plasmon oscillations of a metallic triaxial ellipsoid nanoparticle have been studied within the framework of the quasistatic approximation. A general method has been proposed for finding the analytical expressions describing the potential and frequencies of the plasmon oscillations of an arbitrary multipolarity order. The analytical expressions have been derived for an electric potential and plasmon oscillation frequencies of the first 24 modes. Other higher orders plasmon modes are investigated numerically.     

Static electric dipole polarizabilities of Na clusters

The static electric dipole polarizability of Na _N clusters with even N has been calculated in a collective, axially averaged and a three-dimensional, finite-field approach for , including the ionic structure of the clusters. The validity of a collective model for the static response of small systems is demonstrated. Our density functional calculations verify the trends and fine structure seen in a recent experiment. A pseudopotential that reproduces the experimental bulk bond length and atomic energy levels leads to a substantial increase in the calculated polarizabilities, in better agreement with experiment. We relate remaining differences in the magnitude of the theoretical and experimental polarizabilities to the finite temperature present in the experiments. Received 8 November 1999     

Collective potentials and dipole and quadrupole giant resonances

The dynamic collective model is extended into the energy region immediately above the giant dipole resonances, i.e. into an energy region between 20 and 28 MeV. The total Hamiltonian is constructed and the dynamical problem is solved by diagonalizing the Hamiltonian in the basis of a five-dimensional harmonic oscillator. In schematical studies the splitting of giant quadrupole resonances is shown. For some elements the potential energy surfaces (PES) are constructed within the collective model developed by Gneuss et al. and the quadrupole resonances have been calculated in the framework of the dynamic collective model. In the last part the agreement with experimental data is shown.