physics 617 page

Physics 617, Physics of the Solid State

Joseph Ross, Texas A&M University

Fall 2007

General course information:

Here is the Course Syllabus.
Note that the bookstore initially listed two books as required, but only Kaxiras is requred as the main text.
Also a bibliography of additional references on the course material.

Some of the course handouts as pdf files:
    Handout 1 - on general crystal properties. (file size 430 kB)
    August 29 handout on fcc and hcp layer structures - to illustrate close-packed stacking (760 kB)
    Aug. 30 handout on Fermi gas and Sommerfeld expansion (1.2 MB)
    Sept. 7 handout on Hartree-Fock and density functional theory (544 kB)
    Sept. 10 handout on Hartree-Fock Hamiltonian (36 kB)
    Sept. 17 handout on reciprocal lattices, (500 kB)
    Sept. 26 handout on tight binding theory, with tensor symmetry notes (740 kB)
    Oct. 5 handout on semiconductor effective masses and other properties (front side only) (310 kB)
    Oct. 10 handout on lattice vibration solutions (32 kB)
    Oct. 17 handout on x-ray scattering (512 kB)
    Nov. 7 handout on semiconductor junctions and LEDs (1st two pages) (396 kB)
    Nov. 10 handout on transport theory (656 kB)
    Nov. 14 handout on magnetism: Hamiltonian, Curie law, mean-field ferromagnetism (1.4 MB)
    Nov. 21 handout on diamagnetism and Van Vleck susceptibility (656 kB)
    Nov. 28 handout on superconductivity (990 kB)
    More to appear here as the course proceeds.

Homework:
Here are homework 1, homework 2, homework 3, homework 4, homework 5, homework 6, homework 7, homework 8, homework 9, homework 10.
Solutions: Here is the solution for homework 4, and the solution for homework 10.

Also a sample final exam.

In case of problems email me at .

A few useful links:
Crystal Lattice viewer. Very nice mouse-controlled animated crystal viewers.
Solid State Physics: Interactive learning - has some interesting Java scripts. Check out the phonon dispersion curve and reciprocal lattice calculators.
Crystal Lattice Structures page at NRL, with lots of info.
The Fermi Surface database has a comlete listing for the elements.
Here is a well-done page related to fullerenes.
A Nanotechnology page from Zyvex, with many links.
NanoApex site, nanoscale-related news.
Atypical Superconductors, describes a variety of interesting systems (and also look at the other pages at superconductors.org).

Other more general links:
PhysLINK news and reference.
Science News.
PhysicsWeb.
The Net Advance of Physics has some reviews and many links.
The Amercan Physical Society homepage.

J. H. Ross' home page.
TAMU Physics Department page.
TAMU Materials Science and Engineering Program.
The TAMU IGERT program: New Mathematical Tools for Next Generation Materials
Texas A&M University. (ATM image)