Bipolaron formation and interpolaron interactions in dielectric layers

The Bogolyubov–Tyablikov canonical transformation is used to separate the electron coordinates in the polaron Hamiltonian from the coordinates of the polaron center of mass. The conditions are identified under which the electrostatic image forces at an interface between the insulating phases result in spatial confinement of a polaron. It is shown that motion of a polaron in the vicinity of an interface separating dielectric phases is quantized. It is shown that oscillations of polaron center mass lead to an effective long-range interpolaron attraction. The dielectric properties of adjacent phases required for complete compensation of Coulomb interpolaron repulsion are determined. Numerical estimates are obtained for a specific case of the polaron states in the ammonia system.