Noncrystalline structure of argon clusters. II. Multilayer icosahedral structure of ArN clusters 50<N<750

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Abstract
In a preceding paper, we have described the polyicosahedral structure of small argon clusters containing less than about 50 atoms which were produced in a free jet expansion. Going on with this study, we describe presently the multilayer icosahedral structure of larger argon clusters containing up to about 750 atoms, a value for which the transition to the fcc crystalline bulk structure is found to occur. Cluster models are used in order to study the third icosahedral layer construction, and the transition from a twin to a regular surface arrangement, which is expected to take place around 75 atoms, is observed on experimental patterns. The good agreement between experimental and calculated diffraction functions leads to an estimate of mean cluster sizes, cluster size distributions, and temperature (32±2 K) of clusters containing several hundreds of atoms.