Professors Lindsay and Lombardi are funded by a grant from the Experimental Physical Chemistry Program to study the resonance Raman spectra of mass-selected metal clusters in rare gas matrices. Neutral cluster species of Ag, Rh, Bi, Mo, Nb and others will be interrogated by absorption, excitation, fluorescence, and resonance Raman spectroscopy. The resonance Raman spectra will provide the vibrational frequencies for structural assignment. The ability to mass-select will allow the parentage of a set of observed spectra to be established and will eliminate possible interferences by the spectra of other clusters. %%% Clusters of metal atoms will be produced and deposited with rare gas atoms in very cold samples. By preselecting clusters of specific mass, it will be possible to observe the spectra, make assignments, and deduce the molecular structure associated with a specific cluster. The properties of these groupings of atoms which are between the single atom and the bulk metal may be important in ultra-miniaturized electronic circuits, in nanostructures which are materials of molecular size, and perhaps in quantum dot devices.
