Effective Mass and Energy-Mass Relationship

Abstract

The particle effective mass is often a challenging concept in solid state physics due to the many different definitions of the effective mass that are routinely used. Also, the most commonly used theoretical definition of the effective mass was derived from the assumption of a parabolic energy-momentum relationship, E(p), and therefore should not be applied to non-parabolic materials. In this paper, we use wave-particle duality to derive a definition of the effective mass and the energy-mass approximation suitable for non-parabolic materials. The new energy-mass relationship can be considered a generalization of Einstein's E=mc^2 suitable for arbitrary E(p) and therefore applicable to solid state materials and devices. We show that the resulting definition of the effective mass seems suitable for non-paraboic solid state materials such as HgCdTe, GaAs, and graphene.