jellium model

jellium model

[′jel·ē·əm ‚mäd·əl] (physical chemistry) A model describing the delocalized valence electrons in a metallic atom cluster in which the positive charge is regarded as being smeared out over the entire volume of the cluster while the valence electrons are free to move within this homogeneously distributed, positively charged background. (solid-state physics) A model of electron-electron interactions in a metal in which the positive charge associated with the ion cores immersed in the sea of conduction electrons is replaced by a uniform positive background charge terminating along a plane that represents the surface of the metal.