Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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MM: Fachverband Metall- und Materialphysik

MM 34: Poster Session

MM 34.25: Poster

Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 18:00–20:00, P4

Molecular dynamics simulations of morphology transitions during growth of copper nanoclusters — •Alexey Tal¹, E. Peter Münger¹, Nils Brenning², Iris Pilch¹, Ulf Helmersson¹, and Igor Abrikosov¹ — ¹Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden — ²The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

The study of metal nanoclusters has been a subject of intense research activities in recent years. This is due to their great importance in a variety of applications. Properties of nanoclusters crucially depend on growth methods and conditions during the growth. An understanding of the growth process during the early stages is of particular interest since the morphology of the seeds may determine the structure of the final large clusters. Morphology transition of the seed should be treated as a dynamical process, a requirement is met by classical MD simulations. In principle morphology transition is determined by both, thermodynamics and kinetics. Thermodynamics tends to minimize surface energy and internal stresses. But observations of large clusters with thermodynamically unfavorable structures suggest that kinetics also plays an important role. In this study the morphology transition of clusters at an early stage is considered. The influence of the angular distributions of incoming particles is determined for Cu clusters growth from a seed with 147 atoms. It is shown that growth kinetics crucially affects the morphology transition for small clusters and forbids transition to a most favorable structure for large clusters. The temperature distribution inside the cluster during the growth is calculated and the role of temperature fluctuations is discussed.