Nanomanipulation of Metallic Clusters on Insulating Substrates

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Nanoclusters have become a focal system in nanoscale research due to their far-reaching applications and flexibility for studying different areas of science. The ability to tune the properties of the nanoclusters by controlling the number of atoms they contain remains a powerful investigative tool , but this has been recently coupled with the ability to modify the nanocluster’s physical properties via adsorption to a surface. Adsorbed metallic nanoclusters have attracted a lot of interest due to their role in nanocatalysis , but they also represent prototypical systems for the study of electron transport phenomena in nanostructures . In all these applications, a key objective is to control the position of the nanoclusters on the surface and directly moving nanoclusters via manipulation is an obvious approach. For example, manipulation can be used to form structures of choice, such as ordered arrays of metallic nanoclusters acting as metallic nanowires, with their transport properties controlled by the cluster size and the cluster density. Also, understanding the manipulation of clusters on different surfaces will tell us how the substrate-cluster interaction can be used to tune chemical reactivity. In NOMCIS we will use Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) manipulation to study the lateral mobility and dissipation of nanoclusters adsorbed on surfaces as a function of nanocluster size and charge, ambient environment, temperature, adsorption site and surface material. The NOMCIS project brings together a fully multidisciplinary consortium; including groups specialized in physics and chemistry, with a complementary contribution from theory and experiment.