Response of a rocksalt crystal to electromagnetic wave modeled by a multiscale field theory

In this work, a nano-size rocksalt crystal (magnesium oxide) is considered as a continuous collection of unit cells, while each unit cell consists of discrete atoms; and modeled by a multiscale concurrent atomic/continuum field theory. The response of the crystal to an electromagnetic (EM) wave is studied. Finite element analysis is performed by solving the governing equations of the multiscale theory. Due to the applied EM field, the inhomogeneous motions of discrete atoms in the polarizable crystal give rise to the change of microstructure and the polarization wave. The relation between the natural frequency of this system and the driving frequency of the applied EM field is found and discussed.