SPONTANEOUS TRANSFORMATIONS OF NANOCLUSTERS

It is well-known that nano-systems can have properties which are distinctly different from macroscopic systems. In this study we point out the following specific behaviour: if the particle number is decreased so that the size of the system is in the nanometer-realm, new effects emerge which reflect certain features of biological systems although the system is inorganic in nature. This behaviour is shown by realistic molecular dynamics calculations in connection with aluminum-nanoclusters at various temperatures. The clusters can transform without external influence from a metastable into a stable state, and there can be more than one stable state, that is, we observe a bifurcation in the sense of chaos-theory. The stable states can differ in both the atomic structure and the outer shape.