The formation and composition of clouds are a high priority for an improved understanding of atmospheric processes. In our experiments, we generate condensation nuclei (clusters) of atmospherically relevant atoms or molecules by the supersonic expansion of a gas into an ultrahigh vacuum.
By variation of the experimental parameters, we can change the particle size over many orders of magnitude, from one up to approximately one million molecules per particle, corresponding to nanoparticles of up to 20 nm in diameter. In this project, we characterize the particle size using Rayleigh scattering.
The task will be to measure the particle size as a function of the experimental conditions for an improved understanding of the condensation process.
