https://doi.org/10.1007/s100530050219
On charged mesoscopic metallic bubbles*
1
Theoretical Physics Department, University MCS, Lublin, Poland
2
Physik Department of the Technische Universität München,
Garching, Germany
Corresponding author: a pomorski@nuclid.umcs.lublin.pl
Received:
17
November
1997
Revised:
28
May
1998
Accepted:
20
July
1998
Published online: 15 December 1998
We investigate the existence of stable charged metallic bubbles
using the shell correction method. We find that for a given
mesoscopic system of n atoms of a given metal and
(positive) elementary charges, a metallic bubble turns out to
have a lower total energy than a compact spherical cluster,
whenever the charge number q is larger than a critical charge
number qc.
For a magic number (
) of free electrons, the spherical
metallic bubble may become stable against fission.
PACS: 36.20.Kd – Electronic structure and spectra / 31.10.+z – Theory of electronic structure, electronic transitions, and chemical binding / 21.90.+f – Other topics in nuclear structure / 21.60.Cs – Shell model
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 1998