Crossover from electronic to atomic shell structure in alkali metal nanowires

After making a cold weld by pressing two clean metal surfaces together, upon gradually separating the two pieces a metallic nanowire is formed, which progressively thins down to a single atom before contact is lost. In previous experiments we have observed that the stability of such nanowires is influenced by electronic shell filling effects, in analogy to shell effects in metal clusters. For sodium and potassium at larger diameters there is a crossover to crystalline wires with shell closings corresponding to the completion of additional atomic layers. This observation completes the analogy between shell effects observed for clusters and nanowires.