Abstract
Macroscopic ensembles of weakly interacting argon nanoclusters are studied using x-ray diffraction in low vacuum. As the clusters grow by fusion with increasing temperature, their structure transforms from essentially face-centered cubic (fcc) to hexagonal close packed as the cluster size approaches atoms. The transformation involves intermediate orthorhombic phases. These data confirm extant theoretical predictions. They also indicate that growth kinetics and spatial constraints might play an important role in the formation of the fcc structure of bulk rare-gas solids, which still remains puzzling.
- Received 11 September 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.245505
© 2012 American Physical Society
Synopsis
Looking for Atoms that Pack By the Rules
Published 13 December 2012
Finding the most energetically favorable crystal structure of closed-shell atoms is a long-standing problem where experiment and theory don’t agree, but a study of argon nanoclusters is providing new insight into the discrepancy.
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