Abstract
WOOD1 has shown that the alkali metals become highly transparent in the ultra-violet region, there being for each metal a definite wave-length above which the metal becomes opaque. Kronig2 has used the quantum theory of the optical properties of metals previously developed by him3 to account qualitatively for the phenomenon, and has suggested that it is due to the absorption bands caused by the periodicity of the lattice. Hill4 has made a similar suggestion. The purpose of the present note is to show that if the electrons are treated as free (moving in no field), we can not only account qualitatively for the phenomenon observed by Wood, but also can predict correctly the approximate values of the critical wave-length. We may deduce that the influence of the absorption bands is small.
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References
Wood, NATURE, 131, 582, April 22, 1933. Phys. Rev., 44, 353; 1933.
Kronig, NATURE, 132, 601, Oct. 14, 1933.
Kronig, Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 124, 409; 1929; 133, 255; 1931.
Hill, Rev. Sci. Inst., 4, 525; 1933.
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ZENER, C. Remarkable Optical Properties of the Alkali Metals. Nature 132, 968 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132968a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132968a0
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