Density-functional theory of melting of clusters and films
- 15 August 1992
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review B
- Vol. 46 (7) , 4233-4240
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.46.4233
Abstract
We study the melting of clusters and thin films as a mass-density-wave instability by generalizing recent density-functional methods of melting. We found that the freezing temperature is increased for thin films whereas for clusters it is decreased. For spherical boundaries, at melting the Debye-Waller factor as a function of the radial distance consists of a flat bulklike part close to the center and a decaying interface part at the surface. For small particles, the surface part dominates. This represents a type of generalized Lindemann criterion for small clusters. Our calculation also provides a detailed microscopic description of the density distribution and more physical insight about the system.Keywords
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