Theoretical study of gold nanostructures with unusual morphologies

It might be thought that the bonding in Au is very simple and, thus, it would be expected that the range and scope of nano-structures which Au can form would be similarly limited. However, many unusual Au nano-particles have been observed experimentally which must reflect the effects of the many-body nature of the interactions of Au atoms which manifesting themselves on the nano-scale. Thus, we have explored the use of a many-body Embedded Atom Model (EAM) type interaction potential to simulate the structure of some unusual form of nano-gold. Structures treated are nano-wires, multi-walled nano-tubes, and hollow structures all of which are shown to be stable at low temperatures but may be transformed to other structures given suitable physical conditions.