We report a systematic study of the structural and magnetic properties of free-standing rhodium clusters $({\mathrm{Rh}}_N,$ $4<~N<~26).$ The geometrical structures of the global minima and lowest energy isomers were obtained with a semiempirical Gupta potential and employing a global evolutive search algorithm. The spin-polarized electronic structure and related magnetic properties of these geometries were calculated by solving self-consistently a $\mathrm{spd}$ tight-binding Hamiltonian. We determined the possible coexistence of different isomers and found that inclusion does not, in general, change significantly the magnetic moments obtained for the global minima structures. Results are compared with the experiment and with other theoretical calculations available in the literature.

• Received 1 November 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.66.224410