Re: IONS/metal pedagogy

[Joseph Bellina <jbellina@saintmarys.edu>]

If your are asking for a satisfactory model for the work function, you 
are asking for alot.  I think there is one that works, and it is a QM 
one.  Part of the problem is that since it is a thermodynamic quantity it 
really is only an average, and devices like the STM are looking so 
locally that the work function begins to have less and less meaning 
mechanistically.

cheers

On Mon, 12 Oct 1998, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

> On 1/12/98 Steven T. Ratliff asked
>
> > Would everyone agree that we have right now two possible solutions
> > to the problem:
> >     (a) use of the work function
> >     (b) polarization arguments.
>
> If we accept (b) then (a) can be explained in terms of it. The two
> unresolved
> issues are:
>
> c) Is the arsenal of classical physics sufficient to explain (a)? What
> is the nature
>     of the force against which work must be done to extract electrons?
> d) "Any scheme to make a stable system out of only Coulomb forces
>       must answer to Earnshaw" (Bob Sciamanda).