Electron density of states of dilute alloys

The change in the electron density of states with dilute alloying is directly related to the shielding of the added impurities. If there is no volume change on alloying, the change in ρ(E), the density of states at energy E, is proportional to the excess charge attracted to the impurities from the electron states of energy E. The low-temperature electronic specific heat of various dilute alloys can be interpreted in this manner to obtain the shielding contribution of the electrons at the Fermi energy. The rigid-band model has no obvious relationship to the electronic specific heat of dilute alloys even if the specific heat depends only on the electronper-atom ratio. Such a dependence means only that the attracted charge is proportional to the valence difference between the impurity and the host, a result expected from linear response theory.