Studies of clusters in the gas phase and application to an understanding of transitions from the gaseous to the surface and condensed state

Studies of the structure, stability, electronic properties, and formation kinetics of small clusters provide information useful in furthering understanding of nucleation processes, liquid state properties, and the nature of surfaces. Using mass spectrometric coupled with various high pressure ion clustering and Stark effect-molecular beam techniques, the details of the primary clustering steps leading to the nucleation of bulk liquid from the vapor are obtained by direct observation. This paper is devoted to a review of some of our recent results on these subjects. (Author)