Melting of sodium clusters in electron irradiated NaCl

In this paper we present the results of the first systematic investigation of the geometrical properties of sodium nanoclusters in NaCl using the combined results of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The melting behaviour of the sodium nanoclusters which had been produced in NaCl by electron beam irradiation up to a dose of 200 MGy has been studied by means of DSC. The sodium colloids have been visualized by AFM and their size distribution has been evaluated for two irradiation doses. The DSC scans of the irradiated samples exhibit two melting peaks located at temperatures below the melting temperature of bulk sodium. A phenomenological model has been proposed which explains this behaviour by the existence of two different structural states in the population of sodium colloids. We believe that small sodium clusters inherit the FCC structure from the surrounding Na sublattice in the NaCl matrix. When a small colloid grows, its lattice structure eventually transforms into the BCC structure of bulk sodium. The model results have been compared with the DSC measurements and the transition radius for the two structural states has been estimated.