Composition of Ar-Kr, Kr-Xe, and N2-Ar Clusters Produced by Supersonic Expansion of Gas Mixtures

An electron-diffraction study is made of the composition of binary Ar-Kr, Kr-Xe, and N-2-Ar clusters of various size produced by expansion through a supersonic nozzle of gas mixtures with various component concentrations. The resulting clusters are shown to have compositions substantially different from those of the primary gas mixtures and dependent on cluster size. We have found that the key parameters needed for an analysis of cluster composition are the critical cluster radius and the heavier component concentration in the gas mixture which can be used to establish the regions of existence of homogeneous and heterogeneous clusters. These critical values determine the coefficient of the enrichment of clusters with the heavier component with respect to its concentration in the primary gas mixture. Theoretical relations are obtained which provide a good quantitative description of the experimental results and can be expected to be also valid for finding the composition of binary clusters of other van der Waals systems.