20 research outputs found
Evaporative attachment of slow electrons to alkali nanoclusters
The abundance spectrum of Na^-_{n~7-140} anions formed by low energy electron
attachment to free nanoclusters is measured to be strongly and nontrivially
restructured with respect to the neutral precursor beam. This restructuring is
explained in quantitative detail by a general framework of evaporative
attachment: an electron is captured by the long-range polarization potential,
its energy is transferred into thermal vibrations, and dissipated by
evaporative cooling. The data also affirm a formulated relation between the
binding energies of cationic, neutral, and anionic clusters, and an adjustment
to the prior values of dimer evaporation energies.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, revise