On the diamagnetic susceptibility of bismuth

Abstract

The diamagnetic susceptibility of free electrons was first treated by Landau (1930) who discussed the behaviour of electrons in a magnetic field and showed the motion along the field to be purely classical, while in a plane at right angles to this direction quantum conditions hold which are analogous to those of a two-dimensional oscillator. The investigation showed that in weak fields the diamagnetism had a third of the value of the spin paramagnetism. This theory would not appear at first sight to have any immediate application to metals because the collision of the electrons with the lattice would appear to inhibit the spiral motion, and hence the discrete eigenvalues of the Landau treatment do not exist. Peierls (1933 a, b ) had, however, shown that the Landau formula holds for metals in spite of this difficulty.