Reentrant Adhesion Behavior in Nanocluster Deposition

Abstract

We simulate the collision of atomic clusters with a weakly attractive surface using molecular dynamics in a regime between soft-landing and fragmentation, where the cluster undergoes large deformation but remains intact. As a function of incident kinetic energy, we find a transition from adhesion to reflection at low kinetic energies. We also identify a second adhesive regime at intermediate kinetic energies, where strong deformation of the cluster leads to an increase in contact area and adhesive energy.