Magnetic quantum oscillations in nanowires

Analytical expressions for the magnetization and the longitudinal conductivity of nanowires are derived in a magnetic field, B. We show that the interplay between size and magnetic field energy-level quantizations manifests itself through novel magnetic quantum oscillations in metallic nanowires. There are three characteristic frequencies of de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) and Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations, F=F_0,F_1, and F_2 in contrast with a single frequency F'_0 in simple bulk metals. The amplitude of oscillations is strongly enhanced in some "magic" magnetic fields. The wire cross-section S can be measured along with the Fermi surface cross-section, S_F

Interplay of size and Landau quantizations in the de Haas-van Alphen oscillations of metallic nanowires

We examine the interplay between size quantization and Landau quantization in the De Haas-Van Alphen oscillations of clean, metallic nanowires in a longitudinal magnetic field for `hard' boundary conditions, i.e. those of an infinite round well, as opposed to the `soft' parabolically confined boundary conditions previously treated in Alexandrov and Kabanov (Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 95}, 076601 (2005) (AK)). We find that there exist {\em two} fundamental frequencies as opposed to the one found in bulk systems and the three frequencies found by AK with soft boundary counditions. In addition, we find that the additional `magic resonances' of AK may be also observed in the infinite well case, though they are now damped. We also compare the numerically generated energy spectrum of the infinite well potential with that of our analytic approximation, and compare calculations of the oscillatory portions of the thermodynamic quantities for both models.Comment: Title changed, paper streamlined on suggestion of referrees, typos corrected, numerical error in figs 2 and 3 corrected and final result simplified -- two not three frequencies (as in the previous version) are observed. Abstract altered accordingly. Submitted to Physical Review