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Structural and Optical Properties of Sodium Clusters studied in Density Functional Theory
Stephan Kümmel
ISBN 978-3-89722-444-5
123 pages, year of publication: 2000
price: 40.50 €
Structural and Optical Properties of Sodium Clusters studied in Density Functional Theory
Clusters are aggregates of matter that contain between two and several
thousand atoms. On the lower end of this size range, the field of cluster
physics overlaps with molecular physics, whereas on the higher end, it
touches the realm of solid state physics. Therefore, it is a matter of
system
size and partially also of personal taste whether a system is called a
molecule, a cluster, or a mesoscopic particle. However, it helps to
explicitly
say what a cluster is not: A cluster is neither a single atom nor a
small piece of bulk material. This means that a cluster always consists of
several atoms, but that these atoms are not arranged according to the same
rules as in the bulk material, e.g., in a crystal lattice. Besides
the interest in cluster physics which is fueled by the technological
opportunities that these particles offer, e.g., in catalysis,
chemisorption
and microelectronics, the question why small particles can behave very
different from the bulk is one of the driving forces for cluster
research. Questions like ``How many atoms does it take to build a piece of
bulk metal? In which way does matter grow from the atom to the bulk? Which
effects govern the structural and optical properties at different stages
of
this growing process?'' touch the basis of solid state and molecular
physics
and are of fundamental interest.
It is the aim of this thesis to contribute to answering some of these
questions. To this end
Using these methods,