Molecular dynamical simulations of the melting properties of Aln(n=13–32) clusters

Abstract

Based on the Gupta-type semi-empirical inter-atomic many body potential, the melting properties of Aln(n=13–32) clusters are systematically investigated by using the molecular dynamics method combined with the simulated annealing and quenching techniques. Our results show that, except for several sizes (Al13 and Al19), in general the heat capacity curves all are in disorder (no obvious single-peak), which are consistent with the experimental observations that small aluminum clusters have messy heat capacity curves in the melting process. Reasons for the different melting behaviors (whether they exhibit regular or irregular heat capacity curves) of these small Al clusters can be explored by analyzing the energy distributions of the simulated quenching structures of these clusters at different temperatures. For the clusters with disordered heat capacity curves one can obtain the melting points from analyzing the atomic equivalence indexes of those clusters, and the variations of the calculated melting points of the aluminum clusters with increasing cluster size are in agreement with the experimental observations.