Professor Louis Bloomfield Department of Physics, University of Virginia
4 PM, Thursday, October 5, 1995
Room 101, Olin Physical Laboratory
Clusters of atoms often exhibit magnetic behaviors that are intermediate between those of isolated atoms and those of bulk materials. Because of their large surface to volume ratios, clusters sometimes behave as though they have two or even fewer dimensions. One consequence of their reduced dimensionalities is that clusters tend to be more magnetic than bulk materials but less magnetic than atoms. Clusters also exhibit peculiar temperature effects because their finite sizes that make them very susceptible to thermal fluctuations. This talk will present a survey of some of the intriguing observations we have made in cluster magnetism during the past five years.