Investigation of cohesive energy effects on size-dependent physical and chemical properties of nanocrystals

The intrinsic factor to dominate the size-dependent properties of nanocrystals was investigated through applying cohesive energy to determine the physical-chemical properties. With understanding of the nature of the factor, a model for size-dependent melting temperature, Debye temperature, diffusion activation energy, and vacancy formation energy of nanocrystals was established. The accuracy of the developed model was verified by using the available experimental data of gold nanocrystals. It was found that the above properties have the same size-dependent trend which is contributed by the essential effects of surface/volume ratio. The study reveals that the vacancy formation determined by the cohesive energy is the intrinsic factor to dominate the size-dependent physical-chemical properties.