Spontaneous shape distortion in quench-condensed bismuth clusters below 8 K

We study single-electron transport in quench-condensed bismuth films. By lateral confinement, we select a specific cluster of about 10(3) atoms and use tunneling barriers that appear naturally during thin-film formation. A remarkable reversible increase of the sample conductance up to 5 times was fo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2000-06, Vol.84 (25), p.5836-5839
Main Authors: Kubatkin, S E, Danilov, A V, Olin, H, Claeson, T
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:We study single-electron transport in quench-condensed bismuth films. By lateral confinement, we select a specific cluster of about 10(3) atoms and use tunneling barriers that appear naturally during thin-film formation. A remarkable reversible increase of the sample conductance up to 5 times was found as the temperature was lowered from 11 to 4 K. We attribute this effect to a spontaneous distortion of the cluster shape and discuss its relation to a phase transition predicted for free metallic clusters.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.5836