

"Superatoms" Mimic Elements: Research Reveals New Perspective of Periodic Table - ujjwalg
http://www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2009-news/Castleman12-2009.htm

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daniel-cussen
_"It looks like we can predict which combinations of elemental atoms mimic
other elemental atoms," he said. "For example, by looking at the periodic
table, you can predict that titanium monoxide will be a superatom of nickel.
Simply start at titanium, which has four outer-shell electrons, and move six
elements to the right, because atomic oxygen possesses six outer-shell
electrons. The element you end up on is nickel, whose 10 outer-shell electrons
make it isoelectronic with the 10 outer-shell electron molecule resulting from
the combination of titanium and oxygen. We thought this finding must be a
curious coincidence, so we tried it with other atoms and we found that a
pattern emerged."_

It's curious how genius appears obvious in hindsight.

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Retric
I thought that's why the periodic table was setup to look like it does in the
first place. AKA right side are the noble gases
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_gas>

And on the left side the alkali metals Rubidium, Sodium and Lithium all both
useful for batteries. (Lithium is significantly lighter, but Rubidium is more
abundant etc.)

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ujjwalg
What the article says is TiO (a molecule aka superatom) mimics Ni (an atom).
The group is trying to add another layer of molecules (superatoms) over the 2D
periodic table.

Disclosure: I was a graduate student of Dr. Castleman.

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kurtosis
Hey awesome, I saw some people from your group speak at a conference a while
ago and I was really intrigued by this idea. Especially the idea of making
superatom analogues of Alali-Halide crystals. i.e. taking closed shell Al
cluster cations and anions and packing them into an ionic crystal. What's the
inside word on efforts to actually fabricate these things? Are they still just
theoretical? Could you make them with a ion cluster beam and doing deposition
after mass filtering it?

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ujjwalg
The problem is not making them but making them in enough quantities to be
actually used for applications. A lot of the current research efforts are in
pursuit of depositing them on a surface in our group.

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Perceval
FTA: "This research was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific
Research."

Interesting to see the kind of practical basic research being done by the
military. Their website is interesting: <http://www.wpafb.af.mil/AFRL/afosr/>

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pavel_lishin
Hasn't a lot of scientific advance come about as a direct result of military
research?

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27182818284
You are using the result of military research right now

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET>

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ShardPhoenix
This is interesting, but it seems so simple that if it actually works (ie if
you can actually substitute tungsten carbide for platinum or zirconium
monoxide for palladium), it's quite surprising that no-one has noticed this
before.

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raphar
The superatoms share all the same properties than the original atom? I've
plutonium & uranium in mind...

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btilly
No.

But since most chemical properties of an atom are set by the outer valence
shell, there is a good chance that the superatom will share many chemical
properties with the mimiced atom.

~~~
raphar
Im sure that the military is curious about chain reactions and things like
that.

