Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
The microstructure of an agglomerate can be characterized by the coordination number. The relationship between the fractal dimension and the coordination number of agglomerates of nanometer particles was investigated in experiments and computer simulations. The results for silver agglomerates formed by laser ablation agreed well with the simulations. The coordination number is low for low density fractals because of the large fraction of surface particles which have fewer bonds. The sensitivity of the coordination number to the fractal dimension increases with increasing fractal dimension.