PHYSICS 236 -- SOLID STATE PHYSICS

Level
Introduction to Solid State Physics 5th Ed. by Kittel
Solid State Physics by Blakemore
Solid State Physics by Elliott & Gibson
Experiments in Modern Physics by Melissinos

Prerequisite
Physics 235 and Physics 197

Syllabus
  1. Crystal Structure, Crystal Binding
    1. Space lattice, Miller indices
    2. Reciprocal Lattice, Brillouin zones
    3. Diffraction, structure factor, atomic form factor
    4. Debye-Waller factor
  2. Review of Quantum Statistics
    1. Photons and Black Body Radiation
    2. Bose condensation and superfluid helium
  3. Lattice Vibrations, Phonons
    1. Phonon spectrum for one and more atoms per primitive
    2. cell, acoustic and optic branches
    3. Density of states
    4. Specific heat, Einstein and Debye approximation, Debye temperature, law of Dulong-Petit, equipartition of energy
    5. Heat Conduction and its temperature dependence
    6. Zero point energy
    7. Lindeman melting criterion
  4. Free Electron Model (Sommerfeld)
    1. Density of states, Fermi energy, Fermi velocity
    2. Electronic specific heat, heat capacity
    3. Boltzmann equation and relaxation time
    4. Electrical conductivity, mean-free path, scattering by phonons, by impurities, Matthiessen's rule
    5. Thermal conductivity of electron gas
    6. Wiedemann-Franz law, Lorentz number
    7. Compressibility of free-electron gas
    8. Thermoionic emission, work function, Richardson- Dushman formula
    9. Hall effect
  5. Nearly Free Electron Model, Weak Periodic Potential
    1. Energy bands, E(k), origin of energy gap
    2. Block theorem or Floquet theorem, Bloch wavefunctions
    3. Equation of motion of electrons in periodic potentials
    4. Effective mass
    5. Electrons and holes, group velocity
    6. Metals, semiconductors, insulators
  6. Semiconductors
    1. Direct and indirect band gap semiconductors
    2. Donors and acceptors in the hydrogenic approximation, effective Bohr radius, ionization energy
    3. Electron and hole concentration in pure (intrinsic) semiconductors and those containing donors or acceptors
    4. Equation of mass action
    5. Calculation of position of Fermi level
    6. Mobility, scattering by phonons, scattering by ionized impurities
    7. Schottky barrier, p-n junction
    8. Rectifier equation, photovoltaic effect, solar cell, solid state particle detector, light emitting diodes, junction lasers, transistor
  7. Optical Properties of Solids
    1. Infrared absorption
    2. Interband optical absorption


LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS - PHYSICS 236
The advanced undergraduate laboratory experiments give you the opportunity to learn a variety of laboratory skills. You must prepare for these experiments by learning the physics of the effects to be studied before starting your laboratory work. These subjects have normally not been discussed in class when you carry out the experiments. A clear exposition of the physics, the experimental procedure, and of your experimental data, a discussion of your results and errors, and a comparison with accepted literature values are expected in your laboratory reports.

You normally choose four of the following experiments:



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