Structural and energetic properties of sodium clusters

In this work we present results from a theoretical study on the properties of sodium clusters. The structures of the global total-energy minima have been determined using two different methods. With the parameterized density-functional tight-binding method (DFTB) combined with a genetic-algorithm we investigated the properties of Na_N clusters with cluster size up to 20 atoms, and with our own Aufbau/Abbau algorithm together with the embedded-atom method (EAM) up to 60 atoms. The two sets of results from the independent calculations are compared and a stability function is studied as function of the cluster size. Due to the electronic effects included in the DFTB method and the packing effects included in the EAM we have obtained different global-minima structures and different stability functions.