Related papers: Structural Transitions and Global Minima of Sodium…
In recent experiments on sodium chloride clusters structural transitions between nanocrystals with different cuboidal shapes were detected. Here we presents results for the thermodynamics and dynamics of one of these clusters, (NaCl)35Cl-.…
At ambient pressure, sodium, chlorine, and their only known compound NaCl, have well-understood crystal structures and chemical bonding. Sodium is a nearly-free-electron metal with the bcc structure. Chlorine is a molecular crystal,…
Sodium chloride (NaCl), or rocksalt, is well characterized at ambient pressure. Due to the large electronegativity difference between Na and Cl atoms, it has highly ionic chemical bonding, with stoichiometry 1:1 dictated by charge balance,…
Thermal stability properties and the melting-like transition of Na_n, n=13-147, clusters are studied through microcanonical molecular dynamics simulations. The metallic bonding in the sodium clusters is mimicked by a many-body Gupta…
We use molecular dynamics with an embedded atom potential to study the behavior of palladium nanoclusters near the melting point in the microcanonical ensemble. We see transitions from both fcc and decahedral ground state structures to…
The aggregation of binary colloids of same size and balanced charges is studied by Brownian dynamics simulations for dilute suspensions. It is shown that, under appropriate conditions, the formation of colloidal crystals is dominated by…
A systematic and detailed investigation of the finite-temperature behavior of small sodium clusters, Na_n, in the size range of n= 8 to 50 are carried out. The simulations are performed using density-functional molecular-dynamics with…
Relaxation phenomena in glasses can be related to jump processes between different minima of the potential energy in the configuration space. These transitions play a key role in the low temperature regime, giving rise to tunneling systems…
Packing transitions in the lowest energy structures of Li clusters as a function of size have been identified via simulated annealing. For N>21, the large $p$ character of Li leads to unexpected ionic structures. At N~25, a packing pattern…
The high-pressure and high-temperature behaviors of sodium chloride (NaCl) have the fundamental and application significance to the high pressure physics and chemistry. To explore the reactivity of NaCl at high pressure and high…
The physical and chemical properties of metal nanoparticles differ significantly from those of free metal atoms as well as from the properties of bulk metals, and therefore, they may be viewed as a transition regime between the two physical…
Here we propose an NPT metadynamics simulation scheme for pressure-induced structural phase transitions, using coordination number and volume as collective variables, and apply it to the reconstructive structural transformation $B1$-$B2$ in…
We study the low-temperature behavior of a simple cluster-crystal forming system through simulation. The phase behavior is found to be hybrid between the Gaussian core and penetrable sphere models. The system additionally exhibits a series…
An analysis of the evolutionary trends in the ground state geometries of Na$_{55}$ to Na$_{62}$ reveals Na$_{58}$, an electronic closed--shell system, shows namely an electronically driven spherical shape leading to a disordered but compact…
The morphology transition from the thermodynamically favorable to the unfavorable phase during growth of free-standing copper nanoclusters is studied by molecular dynamics simulations. We give a detailed description of the kinetics and…
According to previous interpretations of experimental data, sodium-scandium double-cation borohydride NaSc(BH$_4$)$_4$ crystallizes in the crystallographic space group $Cmcm$ where each sodium (scandium) atom is surrounded by six scandium…
Sodium chloride (NaCl), a ubiquitous and chemically stable compound, has been considered inert under ambient conditions. Its typical B1 structure is highly isotropic without preferential direction, favoring the growth of a three-dimensional…
We use molecular dynamics simulation to study the relationship between structure and dynamics in supercooled binary Lennard--Jones nanoparticles over a range of particle sizes. The glass transition temperature of the nanoparticles is found…
The reaction of alkali (Na, Cs) clusters with water clusters embedded in helium nanodroplets is studied using femtosecond photo-ionization as well as electron impact ionization. Unlike Na clusters, Cs clusters are found to completely react…
In a cluster crystal, each lattice site is occupied by multiple soft-core particles. As the number density is increased at zero temperature, a `cascade' of isostructural phase transitions can occur between states whose site occupancy…