Nucleation and Growth of Stellated Gold Clusters: Experimental Synthesis and Molecular Dynamics Study

摘要

An experimental and theoretical study on the structure and energetics ofstellated gold clusters at several sizes is presented. Systematic moleculardynamics simulations on Kepler-Poisont classified clusters are performed basedon cubo-octahedral and icosahedral cores, following present and previousstudies that suggest stellated clusters grew up from these seeds. For clustersizes up to 10802 atoms full atomistic molecular dynamics simulations at roomtemperature have been carried out. Results show that stellated clusters in thebigger size regime maintain their star-like shape at room temperature, and bymeans of linear fitting of energy data to proper function models, it ispredicted that the two type of stellated structures might coexist at roomtemperature for relatively large sizes, being these findings in good agreementwith experimental results.