Global optimization of (C60)N molecular clusters

A parallel fast annealing evolutionary algorithm (PFAEA) was employed to optimize the structures of (C60)N molecular clusters with the lowest energy based on an intermolecular potential developed by Girifalco. Although it is very difficult to locate their lowest energy minima for the short range of the potential of C60 molecular clusters, the known lowest energy structures up to N=80, including icosahedral, decahedral, close-packed, have been found successfully by using this effective optimizing tool. Furthermore, two new global energy minima of (C60)30 and (C60)62 were also located in this work.