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Updated: May 22, 2026

In Situ SIMS and IR Spectroscopy of Well-defined Surfaces Prepared by Soft Landing of Mass-selected Ions
Published on: June 16, 2014
Systematic study of Au6 to Au12 gold clusters on MgO(100) F centers using density-functional theory
Lasse B Vilhelmsen1, Bjørk Hammer
1Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Abstract:
We present an optimized genetic algorithm used in conjunction with density-functional theory in the search for stable gold clusters and O2 adsorption ensembles in F centers at MgO(100). For Au8 the method recovers known structures and identifies several more stable ones. When O2 adsorption is investigated, the genetic algorithm is used to imitate structural fluxionality, increasing the O2 bond strength by up to 1 eV. Extending the method to Au(6,10,12), strong O2 adsorption configurations are found for all sizes. However, the effect of fluxionality appears to wear off with increasing cluster size.

