Attractive Kronig-Penney Band Structures and Wave Functions

Abstract

The repulsive-potential Kronig-Penney (KP) model for a one-dimensional band structure is well known. However, real metals contain positively-charged ions resulting in attractive potential wells seen by the metallic electrons. Here we consider the latter case in detail. The square-well version of the KP model is considered first, for which the band structure and wave functions for different potential-well depths are derived. Then an extended treatment of the attractive Dirac-comb version of the KP model is presented. For the nearly-free-electron case, the band structure exhibits a negative-energy band in addition to positive-energy bands. The wave functions, electron densities of states, effective masses, and group velocities are derived for the positive-energy band states. The wave functions of the negative-energy band states are also calculated and found to be quite different from the sinusoidal wave functions for the positive-energy band and band-gap states. High-degeneracy bound states are found at negative energies and their wave functions are derived.