Related papers: Electronic shell effects and the stability of alka…
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 brief review of the nanoscale free-electron model of metal nanowires is presented. This continuum description of metal nanostructures allows for a unified treatment of cohesive and conducting properties. Conductance channels act as…
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…
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…
We supplement our previous observations of the shell effect in alkali-metal nanowires (Li, Na, K) with data extended to the heavy alkalis Rb and Cs. Our observations include: i) a non-monotonous dependence of conductance-histogram peak…
The evolution of the structure and conductance of an Al nanowire subject to a tensile stress has been studied by first-principles total-energy simulations. Our calculations show the correlation between discontinuous changes in the force…
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…
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…
After making a cold weld by pressing two clean metal surfaces together, upon gradually separating the two pieces a metallic nanowire is formed, which progressively thins down to a single atom before contact is lost. In previous experiments…
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,…
Experimental conductance histograms built from several thousand successive breakings of sodium nanowires exhibit peaks up to rather high conductance values (100 x 2e^2/h). In this paper, we present results from a disordered free-electron…
To investigate cylindrical ultrathin copper nanowires, we performed atomistic simulations using the steepest descent method. The stable structures of the cylindrical ultrathin copper nanowires were multi-shell packs composed of coaxial…
We have investigated the stability and conductivity of unsupported, two dimensional infinite gold nanowires using ab-initio density functional theory (DFT). Two dimensional ribbon like nanowires, with 1-5 rows of gold atoms in the…
The stability and electronic structure of a single monatomic Al wire has been studied using the ab initio pseudopotential method. The Al wire undergoes two structural rearrangements under compression, i.e., zigzag configurations at angles…
The formation of gold nanowires in vacuum at room temperature reveals a periodic spectrum of exceptionally stable diameters. This is identified as shell structure similar to that which was recently discovered for alkali metals at low…
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 consider electrons in tubular nanowires with prismatic geometry and infinite length. Such a model corresponds to a core-shell nanowire with an insulating core and a conductive shell. In a prismatic shell the lowest energy states are…
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…
Presented here is a nanowire model, consisting of coupled elastic membranes with the purpose of investigating thermal transport in quasi-one-dimensional quantum systems. The vibrations of each elastic membrane are quantized and the flow of…
Nanowires are formed by indenting and subsequently retracting two pieces of sodium metal. Their cross-section gradually reduces upon retraction and the diameters can be obtained from the conductance. In previous work we have demonstrated…