Quantum Suppression of the Rayleigh Instability in Nanowires

F. Kassubek, C. A. Stafford, Hermann Grabert, Raymond E. Goldstein

Published 2000-06-14, updated 2000-10-30Version 2

A linear stability analysis of metallic nanowires is performed in the free-electron model using quantum chaos techniques. It is found that the classical instability of a long wire under surface tension can be completely suppressed by electronic shell effects, leading to stable cylindrical configurations whose electrical conductance is a magic number 1, 3, 5, 6,... times the quantum of conductance. Our results are quantitatively consistent with recent experiments with alkali metal nanowires.