Small Ni clusters at the (1 1 0) and (1 1 1) surfaces of Al: structures and lack of magnetic moment

Using the Voter and Chen embedded atom model potential for the Ni–Al system, we performed quenched molecular dynamics simulations to compute the ground-state structures of small Nin clusters (n⩽10) at the (1 1 0) and (1 1 1) surfaces of Al. Determination of spin-polarized electronic structure using a self-consistent tight-binding method showed that, due to hybridization between the Al sp and Ni d states, the Ni clusters are nonmagnetic.