Stability and Symmetry Breaking in Metal Nanowires
arXiv:cond-mat/0608373 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.74.245414
Abstract
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 tension and electron-shell effects leads to a complex landscape of stable structures as a function of diameter, cross section, and temperature. By considering arbitrary symmetry-breaking deformations, it is shown that the cylinder is the only generically stable structure. Nevertheless, a plethora of structures with broken axial symmetry is found at low conductance values, including wires with quadrupolar, hexapolar and octupolar cross sections. These non-integrable shapes are compared to previous results on elliptical cross sections, and their material-dependent relative stability is discussed.
arXiv comment12 pages, 4 figures
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Cited by in corpus (8)
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- Metallic properties of magnesium point contacts
- The Escape Problem in a Classical Field Theory With Two Coupled Fields
- Discrete thinning dynamics in a continuum model of metallic nanowires
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