English

Volume change of bulk metals and metal clusters due to spin-polarization

Materials Science 2009-10-31 v1 Atomic and Molecular Clusters

Abstract

The stabilized jellium model (SJM) provides us a method to calculate the volume changes of different simple metals as a function of the spin polarization, ζ\zeta, of the delocalized valence electrons. Our calculations show that for bulk metals, the equilibrium Wigner-Seitz (WS) radius, rˉs(ζ)\bar r_s(\zeta), is always a n increasing function of the polarization i.e., the volume of a bulk metal always increases as ζ\zeta increases, and the rate of increasing is higher for higher electron density metals. Using the SJM along with the local spin density approximation, we have also calculated the equilibrium WS radius, rˉs(N,ζ)\bar r_s(N,\zeta), of spherical jellium clusters, at which the pressure on the cluster with given numbers of total electrons, NN, and their spin configuration ζ\zeta vanishes. Our calculations f or Cs, Na, and Al clusters show that rˉs(N,ζ)\bar r_s(N,\zeta) as a function of ζ\zeta behaves differently depending on whether NN corresponds to a closed-shell or an open-shell cluster. For a closed-shell cluster, it is an increasing function of ζ\zeta over the whole range 0ζ10\le\zeta\le 1, whereas in open-shell clusters it has a decreasing behavior over the range 0ζζ00\le\zeta\le\zeta_0, where ζ0\zeta_0 is a polarization that the cluster has a configuration consistent with Hund's first rule. The resu lts show that for all neutral clusters with ground state spin configuration, ζ0\zeta_0, the inequality rˉs(N,ζ0)rˉs(0)\bar r_s(N,\zeta_0)\le\bar r_s(0) always holds (self-compression) but, at some polarization ζ1>ζ0\zeta_1>\zeta_0, the inequality changes the direction (self-expansion). However, the inequality rˉs(N,ζ)rˉs(ζ)\bar r_s(N,\zeta)\le\bar r_s(\zeta) always holds and the equality is achieved in the limit NN\to\infty.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0010141,
  title  = {Volume change of bulk metals and metal clusters due to spin-polarization},
  author = {M. Payami},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0010141},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

7 pages, RevTex, 10 figures