Services on Demand
Journal
Article
Indicators
- Cited by SciELO
- Access statistics
Related links
- Similars in SciELO
Share
Revista mexicana de física
Print version ISSN 0035-001X
Abstract
REYES-NAVA, Juan A.; GARZON, Ignacio L.; BELTRAN, Marcela R. and MICHAELIAN, Karo. Melting of sodium clusters. Rev. mex. fis. [online]. 2002, vol.48, n.5, pp.450-456. ISSN 0035-001X.
Thermal stability properties and the melting-like transition of NaN, 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 potential based on the second moment approximation of a tight-binding Hamiltonian. The characteristics of the solid-to-liquid transition in the sodium clusters are analyzed by calculating physical quantities like caloric curves, heat capacities, and root-mean-square bond length fluctuations using simulation times of several nanoseconds. Distinct melting mechanisms are obtained for the sodium clusters in the size range investigated. The calculated melting temperatures show an irregular variation with the cluster size, in qualitative agreement with recent experimental results. However, the calculated melting point for the Na55 cluster is about 40 % lower than the experimental value.
Keywords : Metal clusters; sodium clusters; melting in clusters; phase transitions in clusters.