| Issue |
EPL
Volume 114, Number 1, April 2016
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 17009 | |
| Number of page(s) | 4 | |
| Section | Condensed Matter: Electronic Structure, Electrical, Magnetic and Optical Properties | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/114/17009 | |
| Published online | 03 May 2016 | |
The electromagnetic response of a relativistic Fermi gas at finite temperatures: Applications to condensed-matter systems
1 Instituto de Física, Universidad de Antioquia UdeA - Calle 70 No. 52-21, Medellín, Colombia
2 Instituto de Física, Universidade Estadual de Campinas-Unicamp - Campinas-SP, 13083-859, Brazil
3 Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro-UFRJ - Rio de Janeiro-RJ, 21945-972, Brazil
4 Inmetro, Campus de Xerém - Duque de Caxias-RJ, 25250-020, Brazil
Received: 12 April 2016
Accepted: 24 April 2016
We investigate the electromagnetic response of a relativistic Fermi gas at finite temperatures. Our theoretical results are first-order in the fine-structure constant. The electromagnetic permittivity and permeability are introduced via general constitutive relations in reciprocal space, and computed for different values of the gas density and temperature. As expected, the electric permittivity of the relativistic Fermi gas is found in good agreement with the Lindhard dielectric function in the low-temperature limit. Applications to condensed-matter physics are briefly discussed. In particular, theoretical results are in good agreement with experimental measurements of the plasmon energy in graphite and tin oxide, as functions of both the temperature and wave vector. We stress that the present electromagnetic response of a relativistic Fermi gas at finite temperatures could be of potential interest in future plasmonic and photonic investigations.
PACS: 71.10.Ca – Electron gas, Fermi gas / 71.45.Gm – Exchange, correlation, dielectric and magnetic response functions, plasmons / 78.20.Ci – Optical constants (including refractive index, complex dielectric constant, absorption, reflection and transmission coefficients, emissivity)
© EPLA, 2016
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