FISSION AND LIQUID-DROP BEHAVIOR OF CHARGED GOLD CLUSTERS

Fragmentation measurements on doubly charged Au clusters show that clusters smaller than 18 atoms decay by fission (i.e., two charged cluster fragments) and neutral-atom evaporation. The fission probability is found to increase relative to the evaporation probability with decreasing cluster size, roughly as an exponential function of z2/n, where n is the number of atoms in the cluster. The results are found to be in good agreement with an adapted version of the nuclear liquid-drop model. © 1990 The American Physical Society.