Nanoscopic Clusters Of Gallium Melt At High Temperatures - New Technology

Researchers at Indiana University have found that nanoscopic clusters of gallium atoms, with as few as 17 atoms, melt at much higher temperatures than bulk gallium. This is opposite to theoretical expectations of melting points for small clusters

The gallium clusters were launched through a high pressure collision cell where they were heated in collisions with a helium buffer gas. They found that while bulk gallium melts at 303 K, thirty-nine and forty atom gallium clusters melt at about 550 K, and seventeen atom clusters show no sign of melting at temperatures as high as 800 K.

Posted 11^th November 2003