Observation of shell effects in nanowires for the noble metals copper, silver and gold

摘要

We extend our previous shell effect observation in gold nanowires at roomtemperature under ultra high vacuum to the other two noble metals: silver andcopper. Similar to gold, silver nanowires present two series of exceptionallystable diameters related to electronic and atomic shell filling. Thisobservation is in concordance to what was previously found for alkali metalnanowires. Copper however presents only electronic shell filling. Remarkably wefind that shell structure survives under ambient conditions for gold andsilver.