Binding Energies of Charged Metal Nanoparticle Configurations

Abstract

The electrostatic interaction between metal spheres is an influential component in the assembly of many nanoscale materials in chemistry. Here we derive a method to calculate the energy and polarizations of metal spheres in arbitrary configurations to an arbitrary multipole order. This helps provide insight into the preferred configurations of charged metal particles and demonstrates the sensitivity of electrostatic interactions to configuration geometry.

27 pages, 10 figures