Growth and energetic stability of AgNi core–shell clusters

The growth of AgNi clusters is studied by means of Molecular Dynamics simulations at sizes between 200 and 300 atoms. It is found that core–shell structure with an Ni core and an Ag external shell are the most favorable in good agreement with experimental data. Core–shell structures energetics is studied also by a global optimization genetic algorithm, which predicts that the global minimum is an Ni core covered by an Ag shell already at small sizes.