Abstract
The effect of interband transitions of electrons on the linear as well as the bilinear polarization induced in a metal by a light wave of (circular) frequency has been calculated. The calculation of the linear polarization or linear current density leads to the familiar expression for the dielectric constant . The part of the bilinear polarization varying as for free conduction electrons with a potential barrier at the surface is known to have the form where and are, respectively, the electric and magnetic fields varying as . It is shown that the introduction of a periodic potential leads to the same form for for isotropic metals, with and now containing both the intraband and interband contributions. Except near a resonance for interband transitions involving at least 3 bands, it is found that in the long-wavelength limit for the light wave the general expression for may be approximated by a form which may be completely specified in terms of and . By solving Maxwell's equations for the fundamental as well as the second-harmonic fields for arbitrary , , and , general expressions for both linear and bilinear reflection coefficients have been derived. These phenomenological solutions can be used to determine experimentally the residual 3-band contributions to which cannot be expressed in terms of the linear dielectric constant alone.
- Received 22 July 1966
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.153.751
©1967 American Physical Society