Formation and growth of ultra-fine catalyst clusters near an evaporating metallic surface

Details of the processes of metallic cluster formation during the evaporation of Nickel in a Helium environment are considered; these are the processes that are important in nanostructure synthesis. Creation of the clusters by nucleation, their growth by atom condensation at the cluster surface and cluster coalescence are included in this consideration. Spatial distributions of the cluster size and density are obtained using method [1]. Calculations showed that evaporator temperature increase leads to a decrease in the clusters density but an increase in their size. An increase in the inert gas pressure leads to the same result. These conclusions coincide with qualitative tendencies obtained with different metal-inert gas combinations. Modeling predictions are supported by experimental results which will be also presented, see poster by S. Musikhin et al: "Studies of synthesis of ultra-fine nanoparticles using metal arc discharge".