Condensed Matter and Biological Physics Seminars

The development of new experimental techniques to study phenomena, such as the anomalous skin effect, cyclotron resonance in magnetic fields normal to the metal surface, and high-frequency properties of metals, as well as the discovery of collective excitations arising from electron-electron correlations, has offered a new impetus for the analysis of the electronic properties of metals. Here, we discuss the local geometry of the Fermi surface and its effects on high-frequency phenomena in metals and metallic-like conductors. After an introduction, the discussion turns to concrete problems such as cyclotron resonance, magnetoacoustic effects, quantum oscillatory effects in usual metals and low-dimensional structures. It is shown that local geometrical characteristics of Fermi surfaces, namely, local flattenings, nearly cylindrical pieces, kinks and conic points give rise to sensible changes in high frequency properties in these substances.