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Electric deflections of gas-phase, cryogenically cooled, neutral niobium clusters NbN; number of atoms (N) = 2 to 150, temperature (T) = 20to 300kelvin, measured in molecular beams, show that cold clusters may attain an anomalous component with very large electric dipole moments. In contrast, room-temperature measurements show normal metallic polarizabilities. Characteristic energies kBTG(N) Boltzmann constant kB times a transition temperature TG(N) are identified, below which the ferroelectric-like state develops. Generally, TG decreases 110 > TG(N) > 10K as N increases, with pronounced even-odd alternations for N > 38. This new state of metallic matter may be related to bulk superconductivity.
Moro et al. (Thu,) studied this question.