Formation of high- and low-density clusters in a 1D system

The properties of monoatomic chains have been studied theoretically by means of statistical mechanics methods. The applied approach can be used to evaluate the interatomic distances and lifetimes of one-dimensional (1D) and quasi-1D systems. In particular, we show that the 1D clusters of gold atoms can exist in two states with different lattice parameters (∼3.6 and ∼2.8 Å) that can explain the whole variety of experimental observations on monoatomic gold chains without assuming any wire contamination.