In rectangular-lattice Fermi-surface reconstruction, the zero-coupling closed orbit is the overlap lens of two equal circles of radius with centres separated by . Two circular sectors minus their triangular portions give
At fixed chemical potential, the upper hybridized energy band rises when the magnitude of the Fourier coefficient increases. Its occupied pocket therefore shrinks, so this lens is an upper bound in the two-wave model. It is not a universal bound for arbitrary changes of chemical potential or additional energy bands.
Use two plane waves, and , as a basis near their Bragg degeneracy. The potential has Fourier coefficients ; its zero Fourier coefficient vanishes. All other plane waves are off resonance and are neglected in the leading nearly-free electron model. With , the Schrödinger equation reduces to the Hermitian matrix problem
Setting the characteristic polynomial equal to zero gives
Solving this quadratic equation gives
For the real cosine potential its coefficient is real; the absolute-value form also allows an arbitrary choice of origin and corresponding Fourier phase.
At the Brillouin-zone boundary, , the free energies are equal. The two standing waves have different probability densities relative to the lattice potential and are split by
Repeating this avoided crossing at the reciprocal lattice boundaries joins smooth branches into energy bands. In one dimension a nonzero Fourier coefficient opens a gap at the corresponding crossing. In higher dimensions a direct gap at one wavevector need not give a common forbidden energy interval at every wavevector: different bands may still overlap in energy. The present two-dimensional example remains metallic even though the crossings are locally gapped.
For the rectangular lattice, choose real-space primitive vectors and . The reciprocal lattice vectors are
Define the half-widths of the first Brillouin zone by and . Their values and the zone are
A primitive reciprocal cell can be drawn with a corner at the origin; its centred translate is the first Brillouin zone here. Its area is .
Figure 1.
Real-space primitive cell and reciprocal-space first Brillouin zone
. Details.
Including both spin states, counting the occupied free-electron states per unit area gives
Consequently
The occupied disk has precisely the area of the first Brillouin zone, but their shapes differ: . It protrudes through both vertical zone boundaries and does not reach the horizontal ones. Thus two Electrons per cell do not imply a filled first band in the absence of a separating band gap.
Fold the protruding caps by . The original circle and the translated circle intersect at , . The potential mixes these states and replaces each crossing by an avoided crossing. The lower branch reconnects into two open sheets running across successive zones in the direction; the upper branch forms a closed lens-shaped pocket about a vertical zone boundary. In a reduced-zone sketch its two halves sit at opposite edges, but periodic identification makes them one closed sheet. This is rectangular-lattice Fermi-surface reconstruction.
Figure 2.
Free and reconstructed Fermi contours: two open sheets and one closed pocket per reciprocal cell
. Details.
The largest pocket in this weak-potential construction is the lens-shaped intersection of two disks enclosed by the intersecting free circles. Each has radius and their centres are separated by . If , two sectors minus their two triangles give the lens bound on a reconstructed Fermi pocket:
Opening a gap raises the upper branch at fixed chemical potential and shrinks its pocket. The reported quantum oscillation area satisfies
It is therefore consistent with this closed sheet. Onsager quantization gives . An orbit on this closed contour can return to itself under the Lorentz force and occupy quantized Landau levels. The open sheets do not enclose a finite orbit area for a perpendicular field in this two-dimensional model. The observation is consistent with the reconstructed pocket, without uniquely determining a completely arbitrary band structure.
For a quantitative rough coupling estimate, use the supplied fixed-chemical-potential approximation and retain the two waves coupled by . Write
Their upper eigenvalue is
Setting it equal to gives the pocket boundary
Its intersection with occurs at , where
The two-wave estimate of a Bragg-gap coupling from a pocket area therefore uses
At this reproduces the lens bound on a reconstructed Fermi pocket; the pocket disappears at . Numerical integration gives and . Matching the measured area gives , so the justified rough result is
This estimate neglects remote plane-wave admixtures and other Fourier coefficients. It also holds the chemical potential fixed as requested; an exact fixed-density calculation would determine it self-consistently after reconstruction. The numerical root is a way to implement the approximate model, not a measurement of to four significant figures.