Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Abstract:

Stability of highly charged metal clusters in the electric field of an external ion is investigated with the classical liquid drop model. We study the optimum shape of the cluster which has a local minimum of the total energy, taking account of the effects of the surface charge polarization on the Coulomb energy and the cluster deformation on the surface energy. We find that the cluster deformation greatly affects the total energy of the system and that a cluster with a fissility larger than some critical value 0.7-0.8 can become unstable against deformation. We investigate the local competition between the Coulomb force and the surface tension at the cluster surface and show that the surface charge polarization which is induced by the external electric field significantly affects the shape of the cluster and its stability.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

Received 5 November 2002 / Received in final form 27 January 2003 Published online 11 March 2003

RID="a"

ID="a"e-mail: hamada@konan-u.ac.jp

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hamada, K., Wada, T. & Guet, C. Stability of charged metal clusters in the vicinity of an ionic charge . Eur. Phys. J. D 23, 359–368 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2003-00062-4

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2003-00062-4

Navigation