A Metamaterial-Inspired Model for Electron Waves in Bulk Semiconductors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a metamaterial-inspired effective medium model for electron waves in bulk semiconductors, aligning with traditional methods in the long-wavelength limit and analyzing wave packet dynamics.

Contribution

It presents a novel analogy-based model for electron wave propagation in semiconductors, extending metamaterial concepts to electronic systems.

Findings

Model aligns with Bastard's approximation in the long-wavelength limit

Describes time evolution of wave packets in zero-gap semiconductors

Provides a new framework for electron wave analysis

Abstract

Based on an analogy with electromagnetic metamaterials, we develop an effective medium description for the propagation of electron matter waves in bulk semiconductors with a zincblende structure. It is formally demonstrated that even though departing from a different starting point, our theory gives results for the energy stationary states consistent with Bastard's envelope function approximation in the long-wavelength limit. Using the proposed approach, we discuss the time evolution of a wave packet in a bulk semiconductor with a zero-gap and linear energy-momentum dispersion.