Harvesting nucleating structures in nanoparticle crystallization: The example of gold, silver and iron

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: France-Lanord, Arthur, Menon, Sarath, Lam, Julien
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author France-Lanord, Arthur
Menon, Sarath
Lam, Julien
author_facet France-Lanord, Arthur
Menon, Sarath
Lam, Julien
contents The thermodynamics and kinetics of crystallization of nanoparticles, as opposed to bulk phases, may be influenced by surface and size effects. We investigate the importance of such factors in the crystallization process of gold, silver, and iron nanodroplets using numerical simulations in the form of molecular dynamics combined with path sampling. This modeling strategy is targeted at obtaining representative ensembles of structures located at the transition state of the crystallization process. A structural analysis of the transition state ensembles reveals that both the average size and location of the critical nucleation cluster are influenced by surface and nanoscale size effets. Furthermore, we also show that transition state structures in smaller nanodroplets exhibit a more ordered liquid phase, and differentiating between a well-ordered critical cluster and its surrounding disordered liquid phase becomes less evident. All in all, these findings demonstrate that crystallization mechanisms in nanoparticles go beyond the assumptions of classical nucleation theory.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_03969
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Harvesting nucleating structures in nanoparticle crystallization: The example of gold, silver and iron
France-Lanord, Arthur
Menon, Sarath
Lam, Julien
Statistical Mechanics
The thermodynamics and kinetics of crystallization of nanoparticles, as opposed to bulk phases, may be influenced by surface and size effects. We investigate the importance of such factors in the crystallization process of gold, silver, and iron nanodroplets using numerical simulations in the form of molecular dynamics combined with path sampling. This modeling strategy is targeted at obtaining representative ensembles of structures located at the transition state of the crystallization process. A structural analysis of the transition state ensembles reveals that both the average size and location of the critical nucleation cluster are influenced by surface and nanoscale size effets. Furthermore, we also show that transition state structures in smaller nanodroplets exhibit a more ordered liquid phase, and differentiating between a well-ordered critical cluster and its surrounding disordered liquid phase becomes less evident. All in all, these findings demonstrate that crystallization mechanisms in nanoparticles go beyond the assumptions of classical nucleation theory.
title Harvesting nucleating structures in nanoparticle crystallization: The example of gold, silver and iron
topic Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.03969