Quantum Suppression of the Rayleigh Instability in Nanowires
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
2009-10-31 v2 Chaotic Dynamics
Fluid Dynamics
Abstract
A linear stability analysis of metallic nanowires is performed in the free-electron model using quantum chaos techniques. It is found that the classical instability of a long wire under surface tension can be completely suppressed by electronic shell effects, leading to stable cylindrical configurations whose electrical conductance is a magic number 1, 3, 5, 6,... times the quantum of conductance. Our results are quantitatively consistent with recent experiments with alkali metal nanowires.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0006237,
title = {Quantum Suppression of the Rayleigh Instability in Nanowires},
author = {F. Kassubek and C. A. Stafford and Hermann Grabert and Raymond E. Goldstein},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0006237},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
10 pages, 5 eps figures, updated and expanded, accepted for publication in "Nonlinearity"