Universal melting behaviour of clusters Original Research Article

We have simulated the melting behaviour of metal and non-metal clusters for the size of 12⩽n⩽34, where n is the number of atoms. We find that the non-monotonic variation of melting temperature with size, the dependence of melting, boiling, and sublimation temperatures on the potentials, the existence of a surface-melted phase, and the absence of a premelting peak in heat capacity curves can be explained by the relative stability of the internal atoms to the surface atoms in the clusters.