Related papers: Electronic and atomic shell structure in aluminum …
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…
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…
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 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 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…
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…
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…
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 extend our previous shell effect observation in gold nanowires at room temperature under ultra high vacuum to the other two noble metals: silver and copper. Similar to gold, silver nanowires present two series of exceptionally stable…
The quantum states of a system of particles in a finite spatial domain in general consist of a set of discrete energy eigenvalues; these are usually grouped into bunches of degenerate or close-lying levels, called shells. In fermionic…
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…
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…
Computer simulations suggest that ultrathin metal wires should develop exotic, non-crystalline stable atomic structures, once their diameter decreases below a critical size of the order of a few atomic spacings. The new structures, whose…
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…
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…
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…
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…
A unique property of metal nanoclusters is the "superatom" shell structure of their delocalized electrons. The electronic shell levels are highly degenerate and therefore represent sharp peaks in the density of states. This can enable…
Cylindrical multishell structure is one of the prevalent atomic arrangements in nanowires. Being multishell, the well-defined atomic periodicity is hardly realized in it because the periodic units of individual shells therein generally do…
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…