An expansion of energy characteristics of wide thin slab of thickness L in power of 1/L is constructed using the free-electron approximation and the model of a potential well of finite depth. Accuracy of results in each order of the expansion is analyzed. Size dependences of the work function and electronic elastic force for Au and Na slabs are calculated. It is concluded that the work function of low-dimensional metal structure is always smaller that of semi-infinite metal sample.A mechanism for the Coulomb instability of charged metal clusters, different from Rayleigh's one, is discussed. The two-component model of a metallic cluster yields the different critical sizes depending on a kind of charging particles (electrons or ions). For the cuboid clusters, the electronic spectrum quantization is taken into account. The calculated critical sizes of Ag 2− N and Au 3− N clusters are in a good agreement with experimental data. A qualitative explanation is suggested for the Coulomb explosion of positively charged Na n+ N clusters at 3≤ n ≤5.

The conductivity tensor is introduced for the low-dimensional electron systems. Within the particle-in-a-box model and the diagonal response approximation, components of the conductivity tensor for a quasi-homogeneous ultrathin metal film and wire are calculated under the assumption d ∼ = λF (where d is the characteristic small dimension of the system, λF is the Fermi wavelength for bulk metal). We find the transmittance of ultrathin films and compare these results with available experimental data. The analytical estimations for the size dependence of the Fermi level are presented, and the oscillations of the Fermi energy in ultrathin films and wires are computed. Our results demonstrate the strong size and frequency dependences of the real and imaginary parts of the conductivity components in the infrared range. A sharp distinction of the results for Au and Pb is observed and explained by the difference in the relaxation time of these metals.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract