NANOPARTICLE SINTERING SIMULATIONS

Molecular dynamics techniques were used to simulate Cu and Au nanopart icle arrays at different temperatures to study surface energies, grain boundary mobility and sintering. Preliminary results of the studies o n multi-particle arrays several hundred degrees below the melting poin t (T-m) show unexpectedly strong contributions from plastic deformatio n, mechanical rotations, amorphisation and ultra-rapid atomic force dr iven diffusion effects. Evidence is offered that the basic processes a nd kinetics of nanoscale sintering are fundamentally different from th at of normal micronscale sintering. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.