COMPARISON BETWEEN SELENIUM AND TELLURIUM CLUSTERS

Selenium and tellurium clusters are produced by the inert gas condensation technique. The mass spectra of both species are completely different and reveal different properties. In selenium, a periodicity of 6-7 is observed and may be interpreted by the binding energy between small cyclic molecules. Moreover, it was very difficult to obtained large clusters probably because the binding energy between these molecules is very small. In tellurium, these periodic structures do not exist and large clusters are easily obtained in nucleation conditions where only small selenium clusters are present. These results are discussed and a simple nucleation model is used to illustrate this different behavior. Finally these clusters properties are correlated to the bulk structure of both materials.