M Fátima Vaz and M A Fortes 2001 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 13 1395 doi:10.1088/0953-8984/13/7/305
M Fátima Vaz and M A Fortes
Show affiliationsWe discuss in detail the assembly of two-dimensional identical bubbles in stable clusters. The clusters are classified into perfect and defective clusters, depending on the number of sides of their inner cells (defective clusters have inner cells with a number of neighbours different from 6). We evaluate the surface energy of clusters by a broken-bond method and compare with exact energy calculations for simple clusters. Special attention is given to perfect clusters which are classified by their symmetry. For particular values of the number of cells, N, called magic numbers, perfect clusters have special properties. We identify the clusters of smallest energy, for fixed number of cells N (minimal clusters). For large N the minimal clusters are perfect, but for small N a minimal cluster may be a defective cluster.
We produced two-dimensional clusters with N up to 15 by the `monolayer foam' method and studied their relative incidence for N = 6.
Issue 7 (19 February 2001)
Received 16 June 2000, in final form 6 November 2000
M Fátima Vaz and M A Fortes 2001 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 13 1395
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