Related papers: The Nanoscale Free-Electron Model
This article presents a brief review of the nanoscale free-electron model, which provides a continuum description of metal nanostructures. It is argued that surface and quantum-size effects are the two dominant factors in the energetics of…
Metal nanowires exhibit a number of interesting properties: their electrical conductance is quantized, their shot-noise is suppressed by the Pauli principle, and they are remarkably strong and stable. We show that many of these properties…
We report experiments on aluminum nanowires in ultra-high vacuum at room temperature that reveal a periodic spectrum of exceptionally stable structures. Two "magic" series of stable structures are observed: At low conductance, the formation…
A general linear stability analysis of simple metal nanowires is presented using a continuum approach which correctly accounts for material-specific surface properties and electronic quantum-size effects. The competition between surface…
A remarkably quantitative understanding of the electrical and mechanical properties of metal wires with a thickness on the scale of a nanometer has been obtained within the free-electron model using semiclassical techniques. Convergent…
Experimental conductance histograms for Na nanowires are analyzed in detail and compared to recent theoretical results on the stability of cylindrical and elliptical nanowires, using the free-electron model. We find a one-to-one…
A stability analysis of metal nanowires shows that a Jahn-Teller deformation breaking cylindrical symmetry can be energetically favorable, leading to stable nanowires with elliptic cross sections. The sequence of stable cylindrical and…
The conducting and mechanical properties of a metallic nanowire formed at the junction between two macroscopic metallic electrodes are investigated. Both two- and three-dimensional wires with a W(ide)-N(arrow)-W(ide) geometry are modelled…
Energetics and conductance in jellium modelled nanowires are investigated using the local-density-functional-based shell correction method. In analogy with studies of other finite-size fermion systems, e.g., simple-metal clusters or He-3…
Energetics and quantized conductance in jellium modeled nanowires are investigated using the local density functional based shell correction method, extending our previous study of uniform in shape wires [C. Yannouleas and U. Landman, J.…
The surface dynamics and thermodynamics of metal nanowires are investigated in a continuum model. Competition between surface tension and electron-shell effects leads to a rich stability diagram, with fingers of stability extending to…
Strong coupling between electronic and mechanical degrees of freedom is a basic requirement for the operation of any nanoelectromechanical device. In this Review we consider such devices and in particular investigate the properties of small…
Scanning tunnelling microscopy and break-junction experiments realize metallic and molecular nanocontacts that act as ideal one-dimensional channels between macroscopic electrodes. Emergent nanoscale phenomena typical of these systems…
Understanding nanomechanical response of materials represents a scientific challenge. Here, we have used in-situ electron microscopy to reveal drastic for the first time changes of structural behavior during deformation of 1-nm-wide metal…
A unified treatment of the cohesive and conducting properties of metallic nanostructures in terms of the electronic scattering matrix is developed. A simple picture of metallic nanocohesion in which conductance channels act as delocalized…
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…
We performed an extensive first-principles study of nanowires in various pentagonal structures by using pseudopotential plane wave method within the density functional theory. Our results show that nanowires of different types of elements,…
We investigate the elongation and breaking process of metallic nanowires using the ultimate jellium model in self-consistent density-functional calculations of the electron structure. In this model the positive background charge deforms to…
When two metal electrodes are separated, a nanometer sized wire (nanowire) is formed just before the contact breaks. The electrical conduction measured during this retraction process shows signs of quantized conductance in units of…
Transmission electron microscopy experiments have recently observed gold metal nanocylinders to thin down in a discrete manner: A kink--a step of order of one atomic layer--nucleates at one end and then moves along the wire, leaving a…