Speaker
Description
Metal clusters consisting of about a dozen atoms exhibit many properties different from those of the corresponding bulk material, which is due to the strong influence of the particle surface as well as to quantum size effects. It is therefore of great interest to study the evolution of their geometric and electronic structure as a function of size. The presentation introduces our approaches for investigating isolated clusters in the gas phase and clusters supported on surfaces. This includes the study of the dielectric, optical, magnetic and catalytic properties of mass-selected clusters. The main goal is to uncover correlations in the geometric and electronic structure and thus contribute to a better understanding of the magnetic and catalytic behavior of nanoclusters as a function of size and chemical composition.