Shapes of Nuclei of Evaporated fcc Metals

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Abstract
A simple analysis assuming hard‐sphere atomic behavior and considering surface and volume energies has been applied to estimate the stability of very small fcc crystals having different external shapes. Such crystals or particles are commonly produced by vacuum evaporation, or evaporation in a reduced pressure inert gas atmosphere. The analysis has been extended to small crystals (or nuclei) of fcc metals condensed on substrates by assuming that the metal‐substrate interfacial energy is comparable to that of a large angle metallic grain boundary. Icosahedral, pentagonal decahedral, tetrahedral, octahedral, and pyramidal particles were considered, and the relative stability predictions are generally in accord with observations.