The surface premelting, melting behavior, melting competition, and structural transition of shell-closed icosahedral ICO and cuboctahedral CUB nickel clusters with atoms from 309 to 2057 were discussed extensively by using quantitative caloric curves based on the modified analytic embedded atom method and molecular dynamics, qualitative three-dimensional structural visualization of symmetric truncation, and the radial number distribution function. These studies reveal that smaller clusters melt at lower temperatures and a solid-to-solid structural transition occurs from CUB to ICO structure during melting process. The shell-closed ICO clusters could only be preferred until 923 atoms at temperatures no higher than 1380 K, which is in agreement with the experiments. The melting temperature of larger clusters would depend on their starting structures, which can be attributed to surface premelting.

The thermodynamic data, such as the formation enthalpies of disordered solid solutions and intermetallic compounds, and the lattice parameters in the RE–Au (RE = Sc, Y, Ce, Pr, Nd, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er) systems are calculated with the modified analytical embedded atom method (EAM). This work has been undertaken to investigate systemically in RE–Au alloying energies, and to augment available calorimetric data for enthalpies of formation in support of the development of accurate multicomponent thermodynamics databases for these technologically interesting systems. The accuracy of our calculations is assessed through comparisons with the experimental measurements and the theoretical results from the first-principles VASP as well as Miedema’s theory. The composition dependence of the heats of formation for these 10 binary systems is similar, and there is a minimum at 50 at.% Au for REAu (CsCl-type) ordered phase. In all 10 binary systems, the calculated zero-temperature intermetallic formation energies generally agree well with the calorimetric data obtained by the direct reaction synthesis and/or VASP results except for REAu2 (MoSi2type) phase. For the intermetallic phase, the calculated EAM and VASP zero-temperature lattice parameters agree well with the experimental data at ambient temperature. The largest discrepancy between the EAM calculated lattice parameters and experimental data [K. Fitzner,W.G. Jung, O.J. Kleppa, Metall. Trans. A 22 (1991) 1103 [16]; K. Fitzner, O.J. Kleppa, Metall. Trans. A 24 (1993) 1827 [17]; K. Fitzner, O.J. Kleppa, Metall. Trans. A 25 (1994) 1495 [18]; R. Ferro, G. Borzone, N. Parodi, J. Alloys. Compd. 321 (2001) 248 [19]] is approximately 10-18% for some intermediate phases, such as REAu (CrB-type) and RE3Au4 (Pu3Pd4-type).

Molecular dynamics calculations have been performed to study the melting evolution, atomic diffusion and vibrational behavior of bcc metal vanadium nanoparticles with the number of atoms ranging from 537 to 28475 (diameters around 2-9 nm). The interactions between atoms are described using an analytic embedded-atom method. The obtained results reveal that the melting temperatures of nanoparticles are inversely proportional to the reciprocal of the nanoparticle size, and are in good agreement with the predictions of the thermodynamic liquid-drop model. The melting process can be described as occurring in two stages, firstly the stepwise premelting of the surface layer with a thickness of 2-3 times the perfect lattice constant, and then the abrupt overall melting of the whole cluster. The heats of fusion of nanoparticles are also inversely proportional to the reciprocal of the nanoparticle size. The diffusion is mainly localized to the surface layer at low temperatures and increases with the reduction of nanoparticle size, with the temperature being held constant. The radial mean square vibration amplitude (RMSVA) is developed to study the anharmonic effect on surface shells.

Analytic modified embedded atom method (AMEAM) type many-body potentials have been constructed for ten hcp metals: Be, Co, Hf, Mg, Re, Ru, Sc, Ti, Y and Zr. The potentials are parametrized using analytic functions and fitted to the cohesive energy, unrelaxed vacancy formation energy, five independent second-order elastic constants and two equilibrium conditions. Hence, each of the constructed potentials represents a stable hexagonal close-packed lattice with a particular non-ideal c/a ratio. In order to treat the metals with negative Cauchy pressure, a modified term has been added to the total energy. For all the metals considered, the hcp lattice is shown to be energetically most stable when compared with the fcc and bcc structure and the hcp lattice with ideal c/a. The activation energy for vacancy diffusion in these metals has been calculated. They agree well with experimental data available and those calculated by other authors for both monovacancy and divacancy mechanisms and the most possible diffusion paths are predicted. Stacking fault and surface energy have also been calculated and their values are lower than typical experimental data. Finally, the self-interstitial atom (SIA) formation energy and volume have been evaluated for eight possible sites. This calculation suggests that the basal split or crowdion is the most stable configuration for metals with a rather large deviation from the ideal c/a value and the non-basal dumbbell (C or S) is the most stable configuration for metals with c/a near ideal. The relationship between SIA formation energy and melting temperature roughly obeys a linear relation for most metals except Ru and Re.

Molecular dynamics simulations, with the interaction between atoms described by a modified analytic embedded atom method, have been performed to obtain the atomic-scale details of isothermal melting in nanocrystalline Ag and crystallization from supercooled liquid. The radial distribution function and common neighbor analysis provide a visible scenario of structural evolution in the process of phase transition. The results indicate that melting at a fixed temperature in nanocrystalline materials is a continuous process, which originates from the grain boundary network. With the melting developing, the characteristic bond pairs 555 , 433 , and 544 , existing in liquid or liquidlike phase, increase approximately linearly till completely melted. The crystallization from supercooled liquid is characterized by three characteristic stages: nucleation, rapid growth of nucleus, and slow structural relaxation. The homogeneous nucleation occurs at a larger supercooling temperature, which has an important effect on the process of crystallization and the subsequent crystalline texture. The kinetics of transition from liquid to solid is well described by the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami equation.