Cluster structures influenced by interaction with a surface

Abstract

Clusters on surfaces are vitally important for nanotechnological applications. Clearly, cluster–surface interactions heavily influence the preferred cluster structures, compared to clusters in vacuum. Nevertheless, systematic explorations and an in-depth understanding of these interactions and how they determine the cluster structures are still lacking. Here we present an extension of our well-established non-deterministic global optimization package OGOLEM from isolated clusters to clusters on surfaces. Applying this approach to intentionally simple Lennard-Jones test systems, we produce a first systematic exploration that relates changes in cluster–surface interactions to resulting changes in adsorbed cluster structures.