Electrons in crystal potential

In chapter 2 we provided the justification for the single-particle picture of electrons in solids. We saw that the proper interpretation of single particles involves the notion of quasiparticles these are fermions which resemble real electrons, but are not identical to them since they also embody the effects of the presence of all other electrons, as in the exchange-correlation hole. Here we begin to develop the quantitative description of the properties of solids in terms of quasiparticles and collective excitations for the case of a perfectly periodic solid, i.e., an ideal crystal. 

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One now has a picture of conduction electrons in the potential of the ions, which is really a collection of pseudopotentials. The energy of the electronic system obviously depends on the positions of the ions. From the electronic energy as a function of ionic positions, say Ue,(R), one could determine the equilibrium ionic configuration (interionic spacing in a crystal or ion density profile... 

For high-energy electrons, the exchange and correlation between the beam electron and crystal electrons can be neglected, and the problem of electron diffraction is reduced to solve the Schrodinger equation for an independent electron in a potential field ... 

An early method of describing electrons in crystals was the method of nearly free electrons we shall refer to it as the NFE model. In this the potential energy V(x, y, z) in (6) is treated as small compared with the electron s total energy . This is, of course, never the case in real crystals the potential energy near the atomic core is always large enough to produce major deviations from the free-electron form. Therefore, until the introduction of the concept of a pseudopotential , it was thought that the NFE model was not relevant to real crystalline solids. 

The elementary surface excited states of electrons in crystals are called surface excitons. Their existence is due solely to the presence of crystal boundaries. Surface excitons, in this sense, are quite analogous to Rayleigh surface waves in elasticity theory and to Tamm states of electrons in a bounded crystal. Increasing interest in surface excitons is provided by the new methods for the experimental investigation of excited states of the surfaces of metals, semiconductors and dielectrics, of thin films on substrates and other laminated media, and by the extensive potentialities of surface physics in scientific instrument making and technology. 

First, in quantum physics, problems of an electron in complex potentials have been formulated to explain properties of the naturally existing crystals, disordered solids and quasicrystals. Similar structures in optics were mainly man-made for the purpose of optical engineering. 

Note that this is a potential than acts in principle over entire spectra of electrons in crystal thus, the perturbation of the degenerate ground level of the crystal looks like ... 

Under these conditions, the eigen-functions, not being modified by the existence of the potential perturbation of first order, there remains the energetic correction (7.8) to be evaluate for the energy of free electrons (3.58) at the frontier of first Brillouin zone, i.e., in the dot of reciprocal space corresponding to entire family of crystallographic planes of direct space, with interplanar a-distance, thus evaluating the entire periodical potentials influence of type (3.75) upon the quasi-free electrons in crystal. 

Where b is Planck s constant and m and are the effective masses of the electron and hole which may be larger or smaller than the rest mass of the electron. The effective mass reflects the strength of the interaction between the electron or hole and the periodic lattice and potentials within the crystal stmcture. In an ideal covalent semiconductor, electrons in the conduction band and holes in the valence band may be considered as quasi-free particles. The carriers have high drift mobilities in the range of 10 to 10 cm /(V-s) at room temperature. As shown in Table 4, this is the case for both metallic oxides and covalent semiconductors at room temperature. 

Electrons excited into the conduction band tend to stay in the conduction band, returning only slowly to the valence band. The corresponding missing electrons in the valence band are called holes. Holes tend to remain in the valence band. The conduction band electrons can estabUsh an equihbrium at a defined chemical potential, and electrons in the valence band can have an equiUbrium at a second, different chemical potential. Chemical potential can be regarded as a sort of available voltage from that subsystem. Instead of having one single chemical potential, ie, a Fermi level, for all the electrons in the material, the possibiUty exists for two separate quasi-Fermi levels in the same crystal. 

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