Electron-cluster interactions

Beam depletion spectroscopy has been used to measure absolute total inelastic electron-sodium cluster collision cross sections in the energy range from E ∼ 0.1 to E ∼ 6 eV. The investigation focused on the closed shell clusters Na8, Na20, and Na40. The measured cross sections show an increase for the lowest collision energies where electron attachment is the primary scattering channel. The electron attachment cross section can be understood in terms of Langevin scattering, connecting this measurement with the polarizability of the cluster. For energies above the dissociation energy the measured electron-cluster cross section is energy independent, thus defining an electron-cluster interaction range. This interaction range increases with the cluster size. (orig.)