Supershell Structure in Alkali Metal Nanowires

Nanowires are formed by indenting and subsequently retracting two pieces of sodium metal. Their cross section gradually reduces upon retraction and the diameters can be obtained from the conductance. In previous work we have demonstrated that when one constructs a histogram of diameters from large numbers of indentation-retraction cycles such histograms show a periodic pattern of stable nanowire diameters due to shell structure in the conductance modes. Here, we report the observation of a modulation of this periodic pattern, in agreement with predictions of a supershell structure.