TY - JOUR
T1 - Universality in size-driven evolution towards bulk polarizability of metals
AU - Jellinek, Julius
AU - Jackson, Koblar A.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Andres Aguado for the coordinates of cluster structures. This work was supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences, U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 (J. J.) and Grant No. DE-SC0001330 (K. J.).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
PY - 2018/10/7
Y1 - 2018/10/7
N2 - The properties and characteristics of materials on the subnano/nano scale are very different from those of their bulk counterparts. The evolution of materials properties with size is the holy grail of nanoscience. An intriguing question then is: Can one predict what type of material (metal, semiconductor or insulator) an unidentified element will be, when in bulk quantities, solely from the properties it exhibits over a limited range of the subnano/nano size-regime? We demonstrate here that for nominally metallic elements (i.e., elements that are metals in bulk quantities) the answer to this question is "yes", and the very identity of the element also can be established. Most importantly, we show that the phenomenon of size-induced transition to metallicity, as gauged by polarizability, is characterized by features and trends that are universal for all metals. Combining numerical simulation data with an analytical model we introduce a universal constant and derive equations that express the universality explicitly.
AB - The properties and characteristics of materials on the subnano/nano scale are very different from those of their bulk counterparts. The evolution of materials properties with size is the holy grail of nanoscience. An intriguing question then is: Can one predict what type of material (metal, semiconductor or insulator) an unidentified element will be, when in bulk quantities, solely from the properties it exhibits over a limited range of the subnano/nano size-regime? We demonstrate here that for nominally metallic elements (i.e., elements that are metals in bulk quantities) the answer to this question is "yes", and the very identity of the element also can be established. Most importantly, we show that the phenomenon of size-induced transition to metallicity, as gauged by polarizability, is characterized by features and trends that are universal for all metals. Combining numerical simulation data with an analytical model we introduce a universal constant and derive equations that express the universality explicitly.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85054243558&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1039/c8nr06307a
DO - 10.1039/c8nr06307a
M3 - Article
C2 - 30225480
AN - SCOPUS:85054243558
VL - 10
SP - 17534
EP - 17539
JO - Nanoscale
JF - Nanoscale
SN - 2040-3364
IS - 37
ER -