Authors: P GarcíaMochales S Peláez PA Serena E Medina A Hasmy
Publish Date: 2005/09/28
Volume: 81, Issue: 8, Pages: 1545-1549
Abstract
In this work we perform a statistical study of favorable atomic configurations of nickel nanocontacts during their stretching at 4 K and 300 K Nanowire breaking events are simulated using molecular dynamics MD where atomic interactions are represented with stateoftheart embedded atom EAM interatomic potentials The full determination of atomic positions during the contact evolution allows determination of the evolution of the minimumcross section Sm during stretching By accumulating many breaking traces we built minimum crosssection histograms HSm These simulated histograms reveal the presence of preferential geometrical arrangements during the nanocontact breaking showing that no remarkable differences should appear between the low 4 K and room temperature 300 K situations These results show that differences observed between low and room temperature experimental Ni conductance histograms are not caused by the different structural evolution and that therefore other phenomena are involved
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