Multiphase semiclassical approximation of an electron in a one-dimensional crystalline lattice II. Impurities, confinement and Bloch oscillations

Abstract

We present a computational approach for the WKB approximation of the wavefunction of an electron moving in a periodic one-dimensional crystal lattice by means of a nonstrictly hyperbolic system whose flux function stems from the Bloch spectrum of the Schrödinger operator. This second part focuses on the handling of the source terms which originate from adding a slowly varying exterior potential. Physically, relevant examples are the occurrence of Bloch oscillations in case it is linear, a quadratic one modelling a confining field and the harmonic Coulomb term resulting from the inclusion of a “donor impurity” inside an otherwise perfectly homogeneous lattice.