STABILITIES AND FRAGMENTATION BEHAVIORS OF Agn CLUSTERS (n = 2–34)

Abstract

A global search on the lowest-energy structures of the medium-sized silver clusters Ag n(n = 21–34) was performed by using a genetic algorithm (GA) coupled with a tight-binding (TB) method. Structures, binding energies per atom, second differences in energies, the energy gaps between the highest occupied molecular orbital and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (HOMO–LUMO), and fragmentation behaviors of Ag n(n = 21–34) are investigated by using DFT method. The calculated results show that the neutral silver clusters prefer to decay by evaporation of a monomer except a small sized silver cluster ( Ag 4), which favors a dimmer evaporation. For the collision induced dissociation of cationic silver clusters, decaying a silver atom is found to be the dominant fragmentation channel. But for some small sized cationic silver clusters, a neutral dimmer evaporation is found to be energetically favorable. Our calculated results are consistent with previous studies.