Electronic theory for phase stability of nine AB binary alloys, with A=Ni, Pd, or Pt and B=Cu, Ag, or Au

Morphology, dimension, and composition dependence of thermodynamically preferred atomic arrangements in Ag-Pt nanoalloys

The present article is on Metropolis Monte Carlo simulations coupled with semiempirical potentials to obtain the thermodynamically preferred configurations of Ag-Pt nanoalloys. The effects of particle size, morphology or alloy composition on the surface segregation and the chemical ordering patterns were investigated. Surface segregation of Ag is observed in all Ag-Pt nanoalloys. Such segregation develops quickly as the increase of particle sizes or global Ag composition. Generally, Ag surface enrichment is more apparent for more open particles except for large sized icosahedron (ICO) nanoalloys. The most energetically favorable chemical ordering patterns gradually evolve from Pt-core/Ag-shell to onion-like structures when the global Ag composition increases. Due to the site preference of Ag segregation, the presence of partly alloyed facets and Ag blocked vertices or edges at low global Ag compositions can modify the electronic and geometric structures on the nanoalloys' surface. The coupling between Pt and Ag sites is a topic of particular interest for catalysis. The detailed atomistic understanding of atomic arrangements in Ag-Pt nanoalloys is essential to intelligently design robust and active nanocatalysts with a low cost.

A kinetic Monte Carlo study of Pt on Au(111) with applications to bimetallic catalysis

Pt-decorated Au nanostructures and bimetallic PtAu nanoparticles have been shown to act as catalysts. Consequently we investigate the formation of extended Pt decorations of an Au island edge on Au(111) as possible catalysts. The investigation is by simulation using the kinetic Monte Carlo method. The effects of varying the rate of deposition of Pt atoms and the simulation temperature on the morphology of the resulting Pt nanostructures were investigated. The thickness and roughness of the nanostructures are readily influenced, with temperature being the more important factor. A combination of both high temperature and low deposition rate was the most effective at reducing the roughness. PtAu alloying in the Au island edge was identified. This work is (to the best of our knowledge) the first kinetic Monte Carlo simulation study of the formation of Pt nanostructures on Au. We demonstrate how the morphology of the Pt nanostructures can be controlled. The nanostructures studied here, comprising an adjustable mix of Pt overlayers and novel 1D PtAu surface alloys, are expected to be of considerable interest as potential bimetallic nano-catalysts.

Energetics driving the short-range order in CuxPd1-x/Ru(0001) monolayer surface alloys

The energetics determining the distinct short-range order in two-dimensional (2D) monolayer Cu(x)Pd(1-x) surface alloys on a Ru(0001) substrate were investigated by Monte Carlo simulations and density functional theory calculations. Using a 2D lattice gas Hamiltonian based on effective pair interaction (EPI) parameters, the EPIs were derived for different Cu concentrations with Monte Carlo (MC) simulations by comparing with the atomic distributions obtained from atomic resolution STM images and the related Warren-Cowley short-range order parameters (Hoster et al., Phys. Rev. B, 2006, 73 165413). The ground state structures and mixing energies at 0 K derived from these EPIs agree well with mixing energies determined from DFT calculations of different ordered surface alloys. Additional MC simulations yield rather low transition temperatures which explain the absence of ordered 2D phases in the experiments. The consequences of our findings for the use of alloy surfaces and surface alloys as model systems for adsorption and catalytic reaction studies are discussed.

First-principles predictions of yet-unobserved ordered structures in the Ag-Pd phase diagram

The complexity of first-principles total energy calculations limits the pool of structure types considered for a ground-state search for a binary alloy system to a rather small, O(10), group of "usual suspects." We conducted an unbiased search of fcc-based Ag(1)-(x)Pd(x) structures consisting of up to many thousand atoms by using a mixed-space cluster expansion. We find an unsuspected ground state at 50%-50% composition-the L1(1) structure, currently known in binary metallurgy only for the Cu(0.5)Pt(0.5) alloy system. We also provide predicted short-range-order profiles and mixing enthalpies for the high temperature, disordered alloy.

Phase Stability and Diagrams from First Principles

First principles theories of alloy phase equilibrium have been successfully used in recent years to compute temperature-composition phase diagrams for solid state phases. One particular approach, originating with the successful phenomenological Ising models to describe the alloy Hamiltonian, uses a cluster expansion of the configurational energy in terms of short-ranged pair and many-body interactions. The approach is deeply rooted in our ability to compute accurate total energies of relatively complex compounds, using density functional theory in the local approximation, from which effective interactions may be obtained. Fundamental aspects of the method which include convergence of the cluster expansion, treatment of the configurational entropy and description of vibrational modes are reviewed. Applications of the theory are given for binary alloys in the Ru-Zr-Nb system using the Linear Muffin Tin Orbital method for the total energy calculations, the Cluster Variation method for the description of the configurational entropy, and the Debye-Gruneisen approximation for the vibrational modes. The results are used to compute the equilibrium phase diagram for the Zr-Nb system and to assess current experimental data on phase stability in the Ru-Nb system. In the latter case, the calculations indicate that the DO19 structure is a likely candidate structure for the experimentally observed hexagonal-based compound Ru3Nb. Investigation of the energies and interactions of tetragonal structures as a function of the c/a ratio suggest the L10 structure as a likely candidate for the observed tetragonal phase near 1:1 stoichiometry.