We suggest a method for the self-consistent calculations of characteristics of metal films in dielectric environment. Within a modified Kohn-Sham method and stabilized jellium model, the most interesting case of asymmetric metal-dielectric sandwiches
is considered, for which dielectric media are different from the two sides of the film. As an example, we focus on Na, Al and Pb. We calculate the spectrum, electron work function, and surface energy of polycrystalline and crystalline films placed into passive isolators. We find that a dielectric environment generally leads to the decrease of both the electron work function and surface energy. It is revealed that the change of the work function is determined only by the average of dielectric constants from both sides of the film.
We show that the dielectric coating of the metal surface leads to the change in the sign of the positron work function.
We study the influence of energy levels broadening and electron subsystem overheating in island electrode (cluster) on current-voltage characteristics of three-electrode structure. A calculation scheme for broadening effect in one-dimensional case is
suggested. Estimation of broadening is performed for electron levels in disc-like and spherical gold clusters. Within the two-temperature model of metallic cluster and by using a size dependence of the Debye frequency the effective electron temperature as a function of bias voltage is found approximately. We suggest that the effects of broadening and electron overheating are responsible for the strong smoothing of current-voltage curves, which is observed experimentally at low temperatures in structures based on clusters consisting of accountable number of atoms.
