Structure of Mgn and Mg+n clusters up to n = 30

Author(s)
Stefan Janecek, Eckhard Krotscheck, M. Liebrecht, Roman Wahl
Abstract

We present structure calculations of neutral and singly ionized Mg clusters of up to 30 atoms, as well as Na clusters of up to 10 atoms. The calculations have been performed using density functional theory (DFT) within the local (spin-)density approximation, ion cores are described by pseudopotentials. We have utilized a new algorithm for solving the Kohn-Sham equations that is formulated entirely in coordinate space and, thus, permits straightforward control of the spatial resolution. Our numerical method is particularly suitable for modern parallel computer architectures; we have thus been able to combine an unrestricted simulated annealing procedure with electronic structure calculations of high spatial resolution, corresponding to a plane-wave cutoff of 954 eV for Mg. We report the geometric structures of the resulting ground-state configurations and a few low-lying isomers. The energetics and HOMO-LUMO gaps of the ground-state configurations are carefully examined and related to their stability properties. No evidence for a non-metal to metal transition in neutral and positively charged Mg clusters is found in the regime of ion numbers examined here.

Organisation(s)
Computational Materials Physics
External organisation(s)
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
Journal
European Physical Journal D
Volume
63
Pages
377-390
No. of pages
14
ISSN
1434-6060
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2011-10694-2
Publication date
2011
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103036 Theoretical physics
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/30dbad71-fc05-4b40-bc28-2f3bfe1669bd