On the Theory of Light Propagation in Crystalline Dielectrics

TL;DR

This paper presents a new exact microscopic theory for light propagation in crystalline dielectrics, enabling efficient calculation of photonic bandstructure and dielectric properties based on atomic polarizabilities and symmetry.

Contribution

It introduces a novel exact solution for the local electromagnetic field in crystalline dielectrics, clarifying the roles of transverse and longitudinal field components.

Findings

Provides a fast method for calculating photonic bandstructure

Enables dielectric tensor computation from symmetry and atomic polarizabilities

Clarifies the roles of divergence-free and curl-free field components

Abstract

A synoptic view on the long-established theory of light propagation in crystalline dielectrics is presented, providing a new exact solution for the microscopic local electromagnetic field thus disclosing the role of the divergence-free (transversal) and curl-free (longitudinal) parts of the electromagnetic field inside a material as a function of the density of polarizable atoms. Our results enable fast and efficient calculation of the photonic bandstructure and also the (non-local) dielectric tensor, solely with the crystalline symmetry and atom-individual polarizabilities as input.