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Impurity effects on solid-solid transitions in atomic clusters

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Husic, BE 
Schebarchov, D 
Wales, DJ 

Abstract

We use the harmonic superposition approach to examine how a single atom substitution affects low-temperature anomalies in the vibrational heat capacity (CV) of model nanoclusters. Each anomaly is linked to competing solidlike "phases", where crossover of the corresponding free energies defines a solid-solid transition temperature (Ts). For selected Lennard-Jones clusters we show that Ts and the corresponding CV peak can be tuned over a wide range by varying the relative atomic size and binding strength of the impurity, but excessive atom-size mismatch can destroy a transition and may produce another. In some tunable cases we find up to two additional CV peaks emerging below Ts, signalling one- or two-step delocalisation of the impurity within the ground-state geometry. Results for Ni74X and Au54X clusters (X = Au, Ag, Al, Cu, Ni, Pd, Pt, Pb), modelled by the many-body Gupta potential, further corroborate the possibility of tuning, engineering, and suppressing finite-system analogues of a solid-solid transition in nanoalloys.

Description

Keywords

5102 Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 51 Physical Sciences

Journal Title

Nanoscale

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2040-3364
2040-3372

Volume Title

8

Publisher

Royal Society of Chemistry
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/J010847/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/N035003/1)
This work was funded by the ERC and EPSRC grant EP/J010847/1. BEH also acknowledges the Gates Cambridge Trust for financial support.