Stability of Metal Nanowires at Ultrahigh Current Densities

We develop a generalized grand canonical potential for the ballistic nonequilibrium electron distribution in a metal nanowire with a finite applied bias voltage. Coulomb interactions are treated in the self-consistent Hartree approximation, in order to ensure gauge invariance. Using this formalism, we investigate the stability and cohesive properties of metallic nanocylinders at ultrahigh current densities. A linear stability analysis shows that metal nanowires with certain {\em magic conductance values} can support current densities up to 10^11 A/cm^2, which would vaporize a macroscopic piece of metal. This finding is consistent with experimental studies of gold nanowires. Interestingly, our analysis also reveals the existence of reentrant stability zones--geometries that are stable only under an applied bias.