Free Electron Model - Density of States

Density of States

The density of states (DOS) corresponds to electrons with a spherically-symmetric parabolic dispersion

,

with two electrons (one of each spin) per each "quantum" of the phase space, . In 3D, this corresponds to

,

where is the total volume.

Combining the expressions for the Fermi energy and the DOS, one can show that the following relationship holds at the Fermi level:

where Z is the charge of each of the N metal ions in the crystal.

Read more about this topic:  Free Electron Model

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