NANOSURFACE CHEMISTRY ON SIZE-SELECTED SILICON CLUSTERS

Studies of the chemistry that occurs on the nanosurfaces of size-selected silicon clusters reveal a number of fascinating qualitative similarities to the behavior of bulk surfaces. However, silicon clusters containing up to 70 atoms appear to be much less reactive than bulk silicon surfaces. This unexpected result suggests that these large silicon clusters are not just small crystals of bulk silicon, but have much more compact geometric structures.