Cu–Ni core–shell nanoparticles: structure, stability, electronic, and magnetic properties: a spin-polarized density functional study

Bimetallic core–shell nanoparticles (CSNPs) have attracted great interest not only because of their superior stability, selectivity, and catalytic activity but also due to their tunable properties achieved by changing the morphology, sequence, and sizes of both core and shell. In this study, the structure, stability, charge transfer, electronic, and magnetic properties of 13-atom and 55-atom Cu and Cu–Ni CSNPs were investigated using the density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The results show that Ni@Cu CSNPs with a Cu surface shell are more energetically favorable than Cu@Ni CSNPs with a Ni surface shell. Interestingly, three-shell Ni@Cu₁₂@Ni₄₂ is more stable than two-shell Cu₁₃@Ni₄₂, while two-shell Ni₁₃@Cu₄₂ is more stable than three-shell Cu@Ni₁₂@Cu₄₂. Analysis of Bader charge illustrates that the charge transfer increases from Cu core to Ni shell in Cu@Ni NPs, while it decreases from Ni core to Cu shell in Ni@Cu NPs. Furthermore, the charge transfer results that d-band states have larger shift toward the Fermi level for the Ni@Cu CSNPs with Cu surface shell, while the Cu@Ni CSNPs with Ni surface shell have similar d-band state curves and d-band centers with the monometallic Ni NPs. In addition, the Cu–Ni CSNPs possess higher magnetic moment when the Ni atoms aggregated at core region of CSNPs, while having lower magnetic moment when the Ni atoms segregate on surface region. The change of the Cu atom location in CSNPs has a weak effect on the total magnetic moment. Our findings provide useful insights for the design of bimetallic core–shell catalysts.