Abstract

Evidence of curvature effects on the interaction and binding of silver clusters on folded graphitic surfaces has been shown from both experiment and theory. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations within the local density and generalized gradient approximations have been performed for the structural relaxation of both Ag and Ag-2 on curved surfaces, showing a crossover from chemical to physical behavior. Using Lennard-Jones potential to model the interaction between a single cluster and the graphite surface, evidence is found for the curvature effect on the binding of silver nanoparticles to folding graphitic surfaces. The theoretical results are compared to scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy images of samples obtained from preformed silver cluster deposition on carboneous substrates exhibiting anisotropic pleat structures.