Stability of alkali-atom clusters

A detailed study of the stability of alkali-atom clusters is presented and discussed. Free clusters are produced in an unseeded adiabatic expansion and ionized by a pulsed laser beam. A tandem time-of-flight system provides a size selection of ionized species and mass spectrometry of fragments. We have investigated for sodium and potassium clusters containing up to fifty atoms: the metastable decay following ionization, the photo-induced dissociation, the collisional induced dissociation and the collisional charge exchange. Experimental evidence is shown for dissociative process involving evaporation of monomers and dimers. This is explained by the statistical unimolecular theory and by the energetics of the systems.