Molecular Dynamic Study of the Cratering Process during High-Velocity Impact of Metallic Clusters with a Substrate

In this work, numerical experiments were carried out in the framework of the molecular dynamics method to study the impact interaction of metallic nanoclusters of different sizes with a metallic substrate in a wide range of velocities. Analysis of the data obtained showed that the crater volume remains proportional to the impact energy and inversely proportional to the dynamic strength of the material, with the line slope being independent of the cluster size and the cluster–substrate material.