Fig. 4: Energetic stability for core–shell clusters.

The excess energies (\(E_{{\mathrm{exc}}}^ \ast\)) for core–shell structures of (a) Cu55-nCon, (b) Cu55-nNin, (c) Cu55-nRun, and (d) Cu55-nRhn alloy clusters as a function of dopant concentration, where nM is the number of dopant metal atoms in the 55-atom cluster. The lowest excess energies for each dopant concentration are connected by a solid line.