A measurement of the polarizability of sodium clusters - art. no. 063202

The static electric dipole polarizabilities of sodium clusters Na-n for a s eries of sizes in the range 7 less than or equal ton less than or equal to 93 were measured by electric field deflection of a supersonic cluster beam. Results for the smaller clusters are in overall good agreement with previo us experiments. Polarizabilities of the larger clusters continue the downwa rd trend with increasing size, but remain considerably above the bulk limit . There is a degree of correlation between the polarizability values and el ectronic shell structure. Furthermore, there is an indication that the pola rizability is sensitive to the source conditions, possibly reflecting the i nfluence of internal cluster temperature.