This book attempts to answer why there is so much interest in clusters. Clusters occur on all length scales, and as a result occur in a variety of fields. Clusters are interesting scientifically, but they also have important consequences technologically. The division of the book into three parts roughly separates the field into small, intermediate, and large-scale clusters. Small clusters are the regime of atomic and molecular physics and chemistry. The intermediate regime is the transitional regime, with its characteristics including the onset of bulk-like behaviour, growth and aggregation, and the beginning of materials properties. Large-scale clusters reflect more condensed-matter and materials science aspects and it is in this regime that fractals make their most dramatic appearance. This well-integrated and pedagogical overview of the wide field of clusters in which both theoretical and experimental work is covered, should be of interest not only to students, advanced undergraduates and graduate students, but also to researchers in the various subfields surveyed.

Table of Contents:
Part I Small Atomic and Molecular Clusters: production, properties, and Electronic Structure. The structures and Vibrational Dynamics of Small Carbon clusters (J.R. Heath et al). 2. Carbon Clusters: The synergism between theory and experiment (R.J. Bartlett et al) 3. Negative-Ion Photodetachment studies of small silicon and Carbon Clusters (T.N. Kitsopoulos, D.M. Neumark). 4. Chemical Reactivity and Electronic Structure of Silicon Microclusters (D.A. Jelski et al) 5. Ionization Potentials and Electron Affinities of Semiconductor Clusters from Charae Transfer Reactions (S B.H. Bach et al). 6. Size Dependence of Metal Cluster Reactivity as a Probe of Chemical Reactions (M.A. El-Sayed). 7. Chemistry within Molecular Clusters (W.R. Peifer et al) 8. Mass Spectrometric Investigations of Cluster Ions (S.W. McElvany, M.M. Ross). 9. The Third Form of Carbon (L.P.F. Chibante, R.E, Smalley). Part II. Larger Clusters: "Phase Transitions" in Clusters, Growth, Aggregation and the Road to Condensed Matter. 10. Quantum Molecular Dynamics Studies of the Structure and Dynamics of Metal Clusters (J. Bernholc et al) 11. Gas-Phase Cluster Dynamics: Clustering and Growth (R.R. Lucchese, W.H. Marlow). 12. Hydrocarbon Clusters: Building Blocks for New Materials (M.R. Pederson et al) 13. Two-Dimensional Metallic Adlayers: Dispersion Versus Island formation. 14. Cluster-Assembled interfaces (J.H. Weaver et al) 15. Magnetic structure of clusters (L.A. Bloomfield et al); 16. Supramolecular particles - the transition from the molecular to the solid state, (G.C. Papaefthymiou) 17. a mean-field theory of melting for microcrystals, (P. Sheng and M. Zhou) 18. cluster simulations - melting and sintering, (R.S. Berry et al) 19. Clusters and nulceation (W. Klein and H. Gould). 20. Superfluidity in helium clusters, M.V. Rama Krishna et al. Part III Clusters in Condensed Matter and Fractal Behaviour. 21. Assembly of Supra-nanoclusters within Crystalline and Amorphous 3-D Structures (J.E. MacDougall, G.D. Stucky). 22. A Macroscopic Approach to Cluster-Assembled Materials (P. Salamon et al) 23. Physical Properties of Granular Metal Solids (K.M. Unruh et al) 24. Fractal Structures and Dynamics of Cluster Growth (Fereydoon family). 25. Disorderly Cluster Growth (H.E. Stanley et al.). 26. Towards a Realistic General Continuum Theory of Clustering (J.A. Given, G. Stell). 27. Anomalous Diffusion in Disordered Clusters (H. Nakanishi). 28. Frequency Dependent Electrical Conductivity of Mixed (Na+, Ba2-) Alumina (M. Underwiser, R. Orbach). 29. Clustering and Relaxation in Condensed Matter (R.V. Chamberlin).