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Updated: May 26, 2026

Stable Aqueous Suspensions of Manganese Ferrite Clusters with Tunable Nanoscale Dimension and Composition
Published on: February 5, 2022
Low-energy isomer identification, structural evolution, and magnetic properties in manganese-doped gold clusters
Meng Zhang1, Hongyu Zhang, Lina Zhao
1Department of Physics, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China.
Abstract:
The size-dependent electronic, structural, and magnetic properties of Mn-doped gold clusters have been systematically investigated by using relativistic all-electron density functional theory with generalized gradient approximation. A number of new isomers are obtained for neutral MnAu(n) (n = 1-16) clusters to probe the structural evolution. The two-dimensional (2D) to three-dimensional (3D) transition occurs in the size range n = 7-10 with manifest structure competitions. From size n = 13 to n = 16, the MnAu(n) prefers a gold cage structure with Mn atom locating at the center. The relative stabilities of the ground-state MnAu(n) clusters show a pronounced odd-even oscillation with the number of Au atoms. The magnetic moments of MnAu(n) clusters vary from 3 μ(B) to 6 μ(B) with the different cluster size, suggesting that nonmagnetic Au(n) clusters can serve as a flexible host to tailor the dopant's magnetism, which has potential applications in new nanomaterials with tunable magnetic properties.
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