Dependence of Diamagnetic Susceptibility on Surface Potential

Abstract

The dependence of the diamagnetic susceptibility on the surface potential is investigated for a collection of independent electrons confined within a slab by a harmonic potential barrier perturbed by a small fourth-order anharmonic term. Taking the magnetic field perpendicular to the slab, the partition function and susceptibility are found to first order in the perturbing potential using classical statistics. The susceptibility is examined in the small-size or weak-magnetic-field limit at high temperature. Here it is found that no surface-structure-dependent corrections to the diamagnetic susceptibility exist which vary inversely with temperature and therefore the well-known Landau result remains valid for the assumed surface potential.