Abstract
Spontaneous growth of light-induced sodium clusters from thevapour phase up to macroscopic droplets of radii of about 140 nmhas been studied. The intensity of light scattered during thedroplet growth is compared with the prediction of Mie theoryin which it is assumed that the droplet radii can be describedby a single size at any stage of the growth process or by adispersion of sizes. The damping rate of electron movement in asodium droplet (γℏ = 1 eV±15%) is determinedfrom the assumption of the Drude dielectric function as theexternal parameter of Mie theory. The radius and therelative concentration of clusters at successive stages of thegrowth process were determined. The experimental scattering datawere also compared with the model assuming the existence of adispersion of cluster size, which was allowed to be anonsymmetric function of sizes. The distribution of clustersizes was found to be broadened towards larger droplets. Theexperimental results of our study are confronted with theexpectations from classical nucleation theory.
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