Growth and energetic stability of AgNi core-shell clusters

The growth of AgNi clusters is studied by means of Molecular Dynamics simulations at sizes between 200 and 300 atoms. It is found that core-shell structure with an Ni core and an Ag external shell are the most favorable in good agreement with experimental data. Core-shell structures energetics is studied also by a global optimization genetic algorithm, which predicts that the global minimum is an Ni core covered by an Ag shell already at small sizes. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.