title: Spontaneous shape distortion in quench-condensed bismuth clusters below 8 K.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Physics and Engineering Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, S-41296, Göteborg, Sweden.
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Kubatkin
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Danilov
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Olin
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Claeson