Simulation of cold welding of gold and silver nanoparticles

Abstract

This project aims to study a different welding mechanism between metal nanomaterials that takes place at room temperature, which is called cold welding. Molecular dynamics simulation was carried out to investigate the specific merging activities of the atoms within nanomaterials. In this project, gold and silver nanomaterials were used as sample metals. Two cases were simulated based on different morphologies of the sample metals. Here we find the simulation were consistent with the experimental results which indicated that welding of two metal nanomaterials can be achieved on contact at room temperature , and the cold welding process was independent of the size and shape of the nanomaterial.