Structure of liquid metals

Abstract

A brief review is given of the structure of liquid metals. The structure is examined from the viewpoints of how the pair potential in metals gives rise to various structural properties and how the structure of liquid metals effects other properties. Use is made of the Paskin and Rahman molecular dynamic calculations on liquid sodium to illustrate the insensitive nature of the structure to details in the pair potential. Diffraction data are used to demonstrate that a law of corresponding states exists, at the melting point, for simple liquids, metals and insulators. The molecular dynamic calculations of sodium are also used to demonstrate that some time dependent correlation functions may be more sensitive to the form of the pair potential than the structure factor is to the potential. Some analysis is also made of the role of structure in the electrical resistivity. It is noted that more accurate structure data are needed to answer some of the questions raised in recent attempts to use the structure to extract pair potentials and in detailed correlations of resistivity and structure data.