Size-dependent phase diagrams of metallic alloys: A Monte Carlo simulation study on order–disorder transitions in Pt–Rh nanoparticles

• Johan Pohl,
• Christian Stahl and
• Karsten Albe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 1–11, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.1

• simulation; nanoparticles; nanothermodynamics; phase diagram; Pt-Rh; thermodynamics; Introduction Pt–Rh is an important alloy due to its catalytic activity in different reactions. In the past it was assumed that Pt–Rh is immiscible at low temperatures [1][2], but theoretical studies revealed that Pt–Rh

• redeveloped on a more intuitive foundation [7] under the term “nanothermodynamics” [8] by the same author. Recent microcanonical approaches pioneered by Gross et al. [9][10] explore the topology of the entropy surface S(E,Ni) as a function of the energy E and the particle number N. Studying the entropy