Abstract
A simple and general theoretical model has been constructed to study the bulk modulus 'B' of FCC nanoparticles and nanostructures. In order to justify the experimental results of the anomalous behavior of B in nanosolids, this method considers the competing effect of both size and shape of a nanoparticle on B. In this work, the relationship between B and the surface energy has been derived based on the dangling bond energy model. The results show that B depends on size, shape and structure of FCC nanocrystalline solids (nanosolids). Our results show that as the shape changes from spherical to deformed, nanosolids become incompressible and B increases as the size decreases. The obtained theoretical results were compared with the experimental predictions for silver, gold and nickel. A very good agreement between theoretical results and experiments was found for silver and nickel. While in gold, we noticed a deviation from the experiment, which is attributed to extreme deformation of the nanogold.