Three-dimensional effects in resonant charge transfer between atomic particles and nanosystems

Abstract

Resonant charge transfer (RCT) between negative ions and a metallic nanosystem was investigated by means of a high-performance ab initio three-dimensional (3D) numerical solver. During RCT, an electron was shown to occupy succesively nanosystem eigenstates along the $z, \ensuremath{\rho}$, and $\ensuremath{\varphi}$ coordinates. Electron tunneling into a nanosystem is a reversible process, because after some time the electron propagates back to the ion. RCT efficiency in a nanosystem was found to exhibit quantum-size effects as well as lateral ion position dependence. This means that during ion-surface interaction, the nanosystem's size and the ion trajectory strongly influence the final charge state of the ion. In the case of real 3D systems (without cylindrical symmetry), the electron density currents form quantum vortices; this result is rather nontrivial for static systems. In addition, the limits of the adiabatic approximation (rate equation) for the RCT calculation with nanosystems are defined.