Fröhlich polarons from 0D to 3D: concepts and recent developments

I analyse our present understanding of the Fröhlich polaron with emphasis on the response properties, in particular optical absorption.

This workshop 'Mott's Physics in Nanowires and Quantum Dots' provides me with an opportunity to recall stimulating discussions, correspondence and encounters which I had with Sir Nevill, inter alia in Cambridge, in Antwerp, in Leuven, in Rome... He presented a fine series of lectures: 'Solved and Unsolved Problems for Non-Crystalline Materials' in Antwerp in July 1975. I enjoyed discussions on small polarons and hopping, on the stability of bipolarons, and on electronic transport in general. Nevill often approached a problem ever more deeply using a kind of Plato-type approach asking ever more penetrating questions [1-3]. Some aspects of the present paper are treated in more generality in the chapter by the present author in the book [4]. I also refer to the contributions of A S Alexandrov S Aubry H Böttger, V V Bryksin and T Damker A M Bratkovsky V Cataudella, G De Filippis and C A Perroni H Fehske and S A Trugman Yu A Firsov M Hohenadler and W von der Linden V V Kabanov P Kornilovitch D Mihailovic A S Mishchenko and N Nagaosa Guo-meng Zhao M Zoli to [4]. See the further article by Stoneham et al in this issue [5].