Tight-binding study of structural and electronic properties of silver clusters

Abstract

Tight-binding model is developed to study the structural and electronic properties of silver clusters. The ground state structures of Ag clusters up to 21 atoms are optimized by molecular dynamics-based genetic algorithm. The results on small Agn clusters (n = 3-9) are comparable to ab initio calculations. The size dependence of electronic properties such as density of states, s-d band separation, HOMO-LUMO gap, and ionization potentials are discussed. Magic number behavior at Ag2, Ag8, Ag14, Ag18, Ag20 is obtained, in agreement with the prediction of electronic ellipsoid shell model. We suggest that both the electronic and geometrical effect play significant role in the coinage metal clusters.