Publication Date:
2003-05-24
Description:
Electric deflections of gas-phase, cryogenically cooled, neutral niobium clusters [NbN; number of atoms (N) = 2 to 150, temperature (T) = 20to 300kelvin], measured in molecular beams, show that cold clusters may attain an anomalous component with very large electric dipole moments. In contrast, room-temperature measurements show normal metallic polarizabilities. Characteristic energies kBTG(N) [Boltzmann constant kB times a transition temperature TG(N)] are identified, below which the ferroelectric-like state develops. Generally, TG decreases [110 〉 TG(N) 〉 10K] as N increases, with pronounced even-odd alternations for N 〉 38. This new state of metallic matter may be related to bulk superconductivity.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Moro, Ramiro -- Xu, Xiaoshan -- Yin, Shuangye -- de Heer, Walt A -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2003 May 23;300(5623):1265-9.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA, 30332-0430, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12764191" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
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Medicine
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Natural Sciences in General
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Physics
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