A novel experimental method for the measurement of the caloric curves of clusters.
A novel experimental scheme has been developed in order to measure the heat capacity of mass selected clusters. It is based on controlled sticking of atoms on clusters. This allows one to construct the caloric curve, thus determining the melting temperature and the latent heat of fusion in the case of first-order phase transitions. This method is model-free. It is transferable to many systems since the energy is brought to clusters through sticking collisions. As an example, it has been applied to Na(90) (+) and Na(140) (+). Our results are in good agreement with previous measurements.
Chirot
Fabien
F
Laboratoire Collisions, Agregats, Reactivite, IRSAMC, UPS, Universite de Toulouse and UMR 5589 CNRS, 31062 Toulouse, France.
Feiden
Pierre
P
Zamith
Sébastien
S
Labastie
Pierre
P
L'hermite
Jean-Marc
JM