In this paper we study the influence of cooling rate on the structural properties of silver nanowires with 1.6 nm of diameter. This study is done employing molecular dynamics methods with a tight-binding potential. The cooling rates used are in the range of 0.25-25 K/ps. The structural analysis of these systems is performed studying the pair correlation function and the pair analysis technique. The results indicate that the cooling rate affects significantly the structural properties of silver nanowires finding two representative rates, the rupture rate of 2.55 K/ps, where the nanowire is broken into two nanoparticles, and the collapse rate of 1.73 K/ps, where the two nanoparticles collapse to one spherical nanoparticle.

We thank DGAPA, UNAM project IN101019, and CONACYT grant A1-S-9070 of the Call of Proposals for Basic Scientific Research 2017–2018 for partial financial support. G.C.S. thanks Cienciactiva for financial support through the Doctoral Scholarship Program in Peruvian Universities (contract number 218-2014-FONDECYT). J.G.S thanks Aldo Rodriguez Guerrero for technical support. Calculations were performed in the DGCTIC-UNAM Supercomputing Center, project LANCAD-UNAM-DGTIC-051.

D. R. would like to thank the Condensed Matter Research Group of San Marcos University, where part of this work was performed. G. C. -S., H. S. T., and R. M. E. -B. are grateful to National Council of Science and Technology (CONCYTEC) from Peru for the financial support through the Doctoral Program for Peruvian Universities (Nro 218–2014-CONCYTEC). C. V. L. and D. R. are grateful to the Programa Nacional de Innovación para la Competitividad y Productividad of the Peruvian Agency Innovate Perú for financial support under contract number Nro. 457-PNICP-ECIP-2015. C. V. L. would also like to thanks the San Marcos University for partial financial support under project number B17130021.

L.M.S. thanks to the International Max Planck Research School Dynamical processes in atoms, molecules and solids and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst(DAAD) for the financial support. G.C.S. and C.V.L. are grateful to National Council of Science and Technology (CONCYTEC) from Peru for the financial support through the Doctoral Program for Peruvian Universities (Nº 218-2014-CONCYTEC) and the Peruvian Excellence Center Program, respectively. This work has also been partly supported by the German Research Foundation(DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden”. We acknowledge the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at TU Dresden for computational resources.

L. M. S. gratefully acknowledges the International Max Planck Research School Dynamical processes in atoms, molecules and solids and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) for the financial support. G. C. S. and C. V. L. are grateful to the National Council of Science and Technology (CONCYTEC) from Peru for the financial support through the Doctoral Program for Peruvian Universities (No. 218-2014-FONDECYT) and the Peruvian Excellence Center Program, respectively. This work has also been partly supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden”. We acknowledge the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at TU Dresden for computational resources. Open Access funding provided by the Max Planck Society.