Abstract
First-principles simulations show that at the step edge of the stepped Al(001) and (110) surfaces and at the edge of the small supported nanoparticles like the dimer, trimer, and tetramer, single Al atoms can be extracted and repositioned using the Cu trimer-apex tip and the Pt tip of a Al apex, while a more weakly adsorbed single Al adatom on the plane terrace of the flat surface or of the nanocluster cannot be vertically picked up by these two tips. This result suggests in principle a non-electrically assisted method of fabricating and modifying metal nanoparticles at the atomic scale using the vertical single-atom manipulation. As an illustration, a pyramidal nanocluster of five Al atoms is assembled on the Al(001) surface in an atom-by-atom way with the Cu trimer-apex tip, moreover, it can be modified to be two-dimensional in shape.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Profs. Zhuang Jun, Zhang Wenxian, and Zhang Wenqing for the computation support. This work is supported by Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (Grant No.10YZ75), Prof. L. Huang appreciates the support of The Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning. Leading Academic Discipline Project of Shanghai Normal University (Grant No. DZL804), Project for Ability Construction funded by the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (Grant No. 0952050100).
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Xie, Y.Q., Yang, T.X., Liu, F. et al. Fabrication and modification of the supported Al nanoparticles on the Al(001) and (110) surfaces using the reversible vertical single-atom manipulation with the Cu and Pt trimer-apex tips: a first-principles study. J Nanopart Res 13, 1191–1196 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-010-0111-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-010-0111-3