Metastable spin-polarized carbon clusters C₈ and their ensembles

Results of tight-binding calculations on metastable spin-polarized carbon clusters C_8 (prismanes) are presented. It is shown that those clusters can form ensembles due to intercluster bonding. The binding energy of a given metastable configuration decreases monotonously with the total spin S, while the activation energy for the decay of a metastable state has distinct maxima as a function of S. For specific values of S, the dynamical stability of spin-polarized ensembles of prismanes appears to be higher than that of an isolated prismane, pointing to a possibility of existence of "cluster matter" composed of spin-polarized clusters C_8