The Origin of the Metallic Bond

摘要

The basis of our modern electronic interpretation of metalswas laid by the German physicist, Paul Drude, and the Dutchtheorist, Hendrik Lorentz, in the first decade of the 20th cen-tury (1, 2). Both assumed that the weakly bound conductionelectrons could be modelled using the classical kinetic theoryof gases. Though this "electron-gas" model gave an adequatequalitative rationale of metallic properties, it incorrectly pre-dicted both the heat capacity of metals and the temperaturedependence of their electrical conductivity. In addition, itcould not explain their magnetic properties (3). In 1928 theGerman physicist, Arnold Sommerfeld, partially resolved theseproblems by imposing quantum restrictions on the electrondistributions—a lead followed by the Swiss physicist, FelixBlock, whose classic paper, published the same year, laid thefoundations for modern band theory (4, 5).