Tentative plan

 

Week

Lecture

/date

Agenda

Week 1

Introduction

#1

Jan 19

1. General info

2. Why Solid State Physics is Important and Its place in Modern Science

3. Syllabus and Course overview

4. Teaching philosophy and few recommendations how to learn the material.

Week 2 Chapter 1

Structure

#2

Jan24

1. Crystalline and amorphous solids

2. Periodic arrays of atoms and their description

3. Types of lattices

4. Indexes (notation) for Crystal planes and directions

#3

Jan26
  1. Most common Crystal structures
  2. Experimental methods for direct imaging of atomic structure
  3. Nonideal crystalline structures and real world crystals and solids

 

Week 3 Chapter 2

Diffraction

#4

Jan 31

Diffraction of waves by crystals –Bregg law

Reciprocal lattice and Brillouin zones

#5

Feb 2

Experimental methods XRD, electron beam diffraction

Week 4 Chapter 3

Crystal binding

#6

Feb 7

Type of bonds and corresponding crystals:

a)       Van der Waals crystals b) Ionic

c) Covalent d) Metals e) Hydrogen bond

#7

Feb 9

1. Elastic properties of solids:

a)       compliance b) stiffness c) compressability

2. Elastic waves

Week 5 Chapter 4

Crystal vibrations

#8

Feb14

Vibration of lattices:

a) monoatomic lattice and acoustic phonons; b) two atoms per primitive bases and optical phonons

 

#9

Feb16

Quantization of elastic waves

Week 6 Chapter 5

Free electron Fermi Gas

#10 Feb21

Phonons and thermal properties of solids:

Heat capacity

 

#11

Feb23

Thermal expansion

Thermal conductivity

 

Lecture/ date

Agenda

Week 7 Chapter 6

Free electron Fermi Gas

#12

Feb.28

Electrons in solids: case I-metals

Free electron gas and Fermi-Dirac distribution

 

#13

Mar.2

Heat capacity

Thermal conductivity

Week 8 Exam

#14 Mar.7

Electrical conductivity

Motion in magnetic field

#15

Mar.9

Mid-term exam

Spring break

 

 

Week 10 Chapter 7

Energy bands

#16

Mar.21

The origin of energy bands

Electron in periodic potential

#17

Mar23

Metal and insulators

Week 11 Chapter 9 Fermi Surfaces

#18

Mar.28

The concept of Fermi surface

Electron/hole orbits

#19

Mar.30

Calculation of energy bands

Experimental investigation of Fermi surfaces

 

Week 12 Chapter 8

Semiconductors

#20

Apr.4

Band structure

Electrons/holes/excitons/polarons

Effective mass

#21

Apr.6

Intrinsic semiconductors

Semiconductors with donors and acceptors impurities

Semimetals

 

Lecture/date

Agenda

Week 13 Chapter 8  Semiconductors/Surface & Interface

#22

Apr. 11

Thermoelectric effects

Photoconductivity

#23

Apr.13

Surface Structure

Electronic structure of surfaces

Week 14 Chapter 17  Surface and Interface Physics

#24

Apr.18

Surface Science methods

#25

Apr. 20

p-n junctions

Schottky barriers

Heterostructures

Week 15 Chapter 17  Surface and Interface Physics

#26.

Apr.25

Semiconductor devices

Diodes

Transistors

Light emitting diodes

Lasers

 

#27

Apr. 27

Concluding/overview lecture

Week 16

#28

May 2

Final exam