6533b834fe1ef96bd129d531

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Effects of the Surface and Finite Temperature on the Electronic Structure of Metal Clusters

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description

The most fascinating feature of simple metal clusters is the existence of the electronic shell structure. This was observed first in alkali[1] and noble metals[2] and later also in some other nontransition metals[3,4,5]. The shell structure is a consequence of nearly free valence electrons confined to a finite volume. A spherical potential will always lead to a shell structure, the origin of which is the orbital angular momentum l and the large degeneracy (2l+1) associated with it. However, this primitive shell structure is strengthened by ’accidental’ degeneracies between states having different principal quantum numbers. Thus the shell structure of a hydrogen atom is different from that of a harmonic oscillator or a nucleus. The grouping of energy levels to shells and supershells can be understood in terms of the semiclassical periodic orbit theory or by looking at the quantum mechanical eigenvalues. In this review we will mainly use the brute force quantum mechanical approach.