Agradecimentos: The simulations were performed at the National Center for High Performance Computing in Sao Paulo (CENAPAD) and at the CCJDR-UNICAMP. We acknowledge support from FAPESP (2013/07296-2, 2015/19709-5). Partial support was provided by Capes and CNPq. J.A. acknowledges Generalitat Valenciana for Prometeo II/2014/022, ACOMP/2014/270, and ACOMP/2015/1202, Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (Spain) project CTQ2015-65207-P, Programa de Cooperacion Cientifica con Iberoamerica (Brasil) of Ministerio de Educacion (Spanish Brazilian program PHBP14-00020), and Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, "Salvador Madariaga" program, PRX15/00261, for financially supporting this research Ver menos

Abstract: Motivated by recent transmission electron microscopy (TEM) experiments on alpha-Ag2WO4, the coalescence process of Ag nanoparticles (NPs) is investigated using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. These Ag NPs are formed by irradiation of alpha-Ag2WO4 crystals by electrons from a TEM gun. This behavior can be considered as a clear example of surface plasmon resonance (SPR), in which Ag NP coalescence processes are controlled by dipole-dipole interaction forming larger clusters. The interactions between Ag NPs along the coalescence processes are studied using MD simulations with embedded atom method (EAM) effective potentials for Ag. With these choices of methods, coalescence is studied by addressing different scenarios for the interacting NPs, which all could possibly occur in experiments Ver menos