Theory of the Anomalous Skin Effect in Metals

Abstract

PIPPARD¹ has recently made an experimental and theoretical study of the skin effect in metals at high frequencies, in which he showed that the usual theory of the effect is no longer valid at low temperatures owing to the breakdown of Ohm‘s law when the free path of the conduction electrons becomes comparable with the penetration depth of the electric field. With the aim of putting Pippard‘s provisional theory of the anomalous effects on a more rigorous basis, we have reformulated his equations using the methods of the modern electron theory of metals, and we have succeeded in obtaining explicit solutions which make it possible to give a quantitative account of the phenomena to be expected over the whole frequency and temperature-range.