Confined Atoms in Clusters Bubbles Dots and Fullerenes

Abstract

Abstract We present a brief review of the subject of confined atoms, in which we emphasise the origins of the subject and its most recent applications. Emphasis is placed on the wide variety of situations to which the idealised quantum mechanical treatment is relevant. Both the nonrelativistic and relativistic methods are contrasted; an example of confinement in the Dirac‐Fock scheme is given and some special problems connected with relativistic confinement are mentioned. Finally, we present a discussion of the quantum pressure, and a novel, dimensionless choice of variables which allows universal atomic behaviour for confined atoms to be visualised.