Reentrant adhesion behavior in nanocluster deposition.
We simulate the collision of atomic clusters with a weakly attractive surface using molecular dynamics in a regime between soft landing and fragmentation, where the cluster undergoes large deformation but remains intact. As a function of incident kinetic energy, we find a transition from adhesion to reflection at low kinetic energies. We also identify a second adhesive regime at intermediate kinetic energies, where strong deformation of the cluster leads to an increase in contact area and adhesive energy.
Awasthi
A
A
MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Industrial Research Ltd., Lower Hutt 5040, New Zealand.
Hendy
S C
SC
Zoontjens
P
P
Brown
S A
SA