CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The singular properties of nanoparticles have awaked great interest in both the scientific and technological communities, and the size dependence of their thermodynamic properties has been a hot topic of research in recent years. The surface energy, related to the energetic difference between a surface atom and a bulk one, is one of the basic quantities that can be used to understand surface structures, reconstructions, roughening and relaxations. Following the framework established by Hill and Chamberlin to analyze the extension of thermodynamics of small systems to metastable states, we attempt a statistical mechanic approach to our previous thermodynamic analysis of electrochemical formation of core-shell nanoparticles. A brief discussion on the model is made illustrating its application with computer simulation using realistic interatomic potentials. The behavior of those systems where the binding energy of the adsorbate to the substrate is more positive than that of the bulk adsorbate showed close similarities to that of the classical behavior expected of the growth of pure metal clusters. However, when the adsorbate/substrate interaction is stronger than the bulk adsorbate interaction, a manifold of behavior arise depending on cluster size and shape.