Possible ground-state structure of Au26:: A highly symmetric tubelike cage -: art. no. 114310

The stable tubelike Au-N (N=26-28) has been found using the scalar relativistic all-electron density functional theory calculations, which becomes another powerful candidate for the lowest-energy Au-N, competing in energy with those space-filled structures suggested previously. Unlike the icosahedral "golden" fullerene Au-32, these tubelike gold clusters may be closely related to the synthesized single-wall gold nanotubes (SWGNTs). The ground-state Au-26 has a hollow tubelike structure constructed from the (6, 0) SWGNT, yielding a high-symmetry D-6d cage, based upon which the most stable Au-27 and Au-28 can be obtained by adding one and two more capped atoms on its one end, respectively. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.