4/16/11

Practice Mid-Semester Question

Thought I'd throw this out there to see if anyone can help.

Has anyone had success with question 2 iv) of the practice mid-semester? I know that:

h^2/2m* = d^2E/dk^2

and have tried a few other methods, but I can't quite seem to get the answer. Any suggestions? I'm figuring I'm probably not taking the approximation near the boundary correctly.

3 comments:

  1. the approximation should be the taylor expansion near the boundary; E(k)(approx)= E(G/2) + h^2(k-G/2)^2 /2m*
    (I think this is correct, but check it for yourself of course)

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  2. Yeah I've tried that as well, that and the above derivative statement are completely equivalent.

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  3. The important thing to notice with this derivation is that we are looking at the case where k is near the boundary of the first Brillouin zone (FBZ) but not on it, so k does not equal G/2.

    Normally we would lose term E^0(k)-E^0(k-G) because both E^0(k) and E^0(k-G) have the same magnitude at the first Brillouin zone, but not in the case, so those terms need to remain.

    It's a tricky question and you may find that substituting for a new variable can simplify things.

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