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Thomas-Fermi Screening in a Metal

Interactive 3D simulator of Thomas-Fermi screening: a charged impurity embedded in a degenerate electron gas, showing the exponentially screened potential and the electron screening cloud that forms around it, with live Fermi energy, Fermi wavevector and screening length readouts.

Plasma Physics3DAdvanced60 FPS

This simulator drops a charged impurity into a degenerate free-electron gas and renders the screening cloud that forms around it: thousands of instanced electrons redistribute with a radial density that follows the Thomas-Fermi exponential profile, replacing the impurity's bare 1/r Coulomb field with a short-range φ(r) ∝ e^(−r/λ_TF)/r potential. A live side graph plots the screened potential against the unscreened one, while the carrier-density slider drives real Fermi-gas physics — Fermi wavevector, Fermi energy, density of states and the resulting screening length all update from the same free-electron formulas used for real metals.

⚙ Under the hood

Watch a charged impurity dropped into a degenerate electron gas gather a screening cloud that turns its bare 1/r Coulomb field into a short-range exponential potential, with live Fermi energy, Fermi wavevector and Thomas-Fermi screening length readouts.

Thomas-Fermiscreeningelectron gascondensed matterFermi energyplasma physics

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install