Geometrical structures and energetics of gold clusters from Au13 to Au300

Abstract

The growth pattern of gold clusters containing up to 300 atoms was studied. The interatomic interaction is modeled by Gupta potential with density-functional-theory-fitted parameters. The stable structures of Au 13-300 clusters are obtained by dynamic lattice searching (DLS) and DLS with constructed cores (DLSc) methods. In the optimized structures of Au 13-88 clusters, most of clusters adopt the decahedral motifs, except for twelve face-centered cubic (FCC) and stacking fault (SF) FCC motifs. With respect to the wide appearance of the three kinds of motifs, corresponding inner cores are constructed in the DLSc method to optimize Au 90-300 clusters with several tens number of atoms. Results show that the major motifs are FCC and SF FCC, except for decahedra at Au 110 , Au 160 , Au 180 , Au 190 , and Au 230 . Furthermore, the ratio of SF FCC structures is obviously increasing, it can, thus, be deduced that SF FCC motif is more stable in large size gold clusters.

The synthesis and electrical transport of ligand-protected Au13 clusters

“…1d). This peak is in the similar position of those previous optical spectrum studies of ligand-protected Au 13 clusters 12,18 .…”

“…In conclusion, ligand-protected Au 13 An absorbance maximum at 390 nm is shown, which is characteristic for Au 13 cluster. clusters.…”

“…are expected to be important building blocks of cluster devices due to their novel chemical, electronic and optical properties 8,9 . Au 13 clusters are the smallest magic number clusters and have attracted much attention. Plenty of work has been done on the Au 13 clusters regarding of its synthesis, structure, electronic structures, etc.…”

“…Plenty of work has been done on the Au 13 clusters regarding of its synthesis, structure, electronic structures, etc. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] However, the fabrication of Au 13 -based cluster devices and their electrical transport have not been reported yet.…”

“…In this work, we have fabricated the cluster devices based on ligand-protected Au 13 clusters. Gold clusters Au 13 are produced by the wet chemical method and the measurement devices are made by the electro-migration technique.…”