A theory of thin metal films: electron density, potentials and work function

Schulte, Florian

doi:10.1016/0039-6028(76)90250-8

Cited by 367 publications

(221 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The meeting of the condition for the presence of a standing wave pattern of the Fermi electrons between the interfaces, that is, quantum confinement, was found energetically favourable. Schulte 24 reported self-consistent electronic structure calculations that revealed thickness-dependent oscillations in the work function. Experimental evidence that QSE indeed affect epitaxial thin film growth has indeed been found by Hinch et al 26 for Pb on Cu(111) and by Smith et al 30 for Ag on GaAs(110).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electronically stabilized nanowire growth

et al. 2013

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Metallic nanowires show unique physical properties owing to their one-dimensional nature. Many of these unique properties are intimately related to electron-electron interactions, which have a much more prominent role in one dimension than in two or three dimensions. Here we report the direct visualization of quantum size effects responsible for preferred lengths of self-assembled metallic iridium nanowires grown on a germanium (001) surface. The nanowire length distribution shows a strong preference for nanowire lengths that are an integer multiple of 4.8 nm. Spatially resolved scanning tunneling spectroscopic measurements reveal the presence of electron standing waves patterns in the nanowires. These standing waves are caused by conduction electrons, that is the electrons near the Fermi level, which are scattered at the ends of the nanowire.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The notion that quantum size effects (QSE) in the growth of thin metal films can lead to smooth films with magic thicknesses has already been recognized a few decades ago [24][25][26][27] . For obvious reasons, the underlying oscillations of the electron density of states cannot be measured for thin films.…”

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confidence: 99%

Electronically stabilized nanowire growth

et al. 2013

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“…Ref. 34 for a jellium study of such effects). Details of the quantum size effects, how they differ for different surface orientations, and how they affect relaxations will be discussed elsewhere.…”

Section: B Surface Energies and Work Functionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

First-principles study of low-index surfaces of lead

Scheffler

2004

Phys. Rev. B

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We report a density-functional theory study for Pb͑111͒, Pb͑100͒, and Pb͑110͒ surfaces using ab initio pseudopotentials and a plane-wave basis set. Creating the pseudopotential with the 6s, 6p, and 6d states in the valence shell is found to yield good results for the bulk lattice constant, bulk modulus, and cohesive energy. Convergence of the surface energies with plane-wave cutoff, k-mesh, vacuum and slab thickness was carefully checked, as was the effect of the nonlinearity of the core-valence exchange-correlation interaction. Employing the local-density approximation of the exchange-correlation functional we obtain excellent agreement of the calculated surface energies and surface-energy anisotropies with recent experimental results. However, with the generalized gradient approximation the calculated surface energies are about 30% too low. For all three studied surfaces, the calculations give interlayer relaxations that are in reasonable agreement with low-energy electron diffraction analysis. The relaxations exhibit a damped oscillatory behavior away from the surface, which is typical for a metal surface.

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“…When the dimension of a material (either one, two or all three dimensions) is reduced to nanoscale, its properties become size dependent, due to quantum confinement effect or surface effect, and the former is generally referred to as the quantum size effect (QSE) 1,2 . In recent years, there have been intensive studies of QSE on properties of ultrathin films in the quantum confinement regime.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantum size effect on dielectric function of ultrathin metal film: a first-principles study of Al(1 1 1)

Ming¹,

Blair²,

Liu³

2014

J. Phys.: Condens. Matter

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Quantum manifestations of various properties of metallic thin films by quantum size effect (QSE) have been studied intensively. Here, using first-principles calculations, we show quantum manifestation in dielectric properties of Al (111) ultrathin films. The QSE on the dielectric function is revealed, which arises from size dependent contributions from both intraband and interband electronic transitions. More importantly, the in-plane interband transitions in the films thinner than 15 monolayers are found to be smaller than the bulk counterpart in the energy range from 1.5 eV to 2.5 eV. This indicates less energy loss with plasmonic material of Al in the form of ultrathin film. Our findings may shed light on searching for low-loss plasmonic materials via quantum size effect.

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A theory of thin metal films: electron density, potentials and work function

Cited by 367 publications

References 30 publications

Electronically stabilized nanowire growth

Electronically stabilized nanowire growth

First-principles study of low-index surfaces of lead

Quantum size effect on dielectric function of ultrathin metal film: a first-principles study of Al(1 1 1)

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