Solid State Physics Lecture Coverage

Week 1

• Monday, Jan. 12, Crystal lattices and atomic structures
• Wednesday, Jan. 14, Lattices with basis. Miller indexing.
• Friday, Jan. 16, Diffraction

Week 2

• Monday, Jan. 19, no class, MLK day
• Wednesday, Jan. 21, Diffraction intensity calculation. Reciprocal lattice
• Friday, Jan. 23, Fourier transformation. Bragg and Laue diffraction conditions.

Week 3

• Monday, Jan. 26, Diffraction from lattices with multiple-atom basis
• Wednesday, Jan. 28, Van der Waals interaction, Lennard-Jones interaction
• Friday, Jan. 30, Ionic, metallic and covalent bonding.

Week 4

• Monday, Feb. 2, Stress and strain tensors
• Wednesday, Feb. 4, Net force
• Friday, Feb. 6, Sound waves, phase/group velocity

Week 5

• Monday, Feb. 9, Phonons in linear atomic chain.
• Wednesday, Feb. 11, Multi-atom basis. Optical phonons.
• Friday, Feb. 13, Phonons as quantum excitations. Inelastic neutron diffracction.

Week 6

• Monday, Feb. 16, Midterm exam #1
• Wednesday, Feb. 18, Thermal excitation of phonons.
• Friday, Feb. 20, Phonon heat capacity.

Week 7

• Monday, Feb. 23, Debye-Waller effect. Thermal expansion.
• Wednesday, Feb. 25, Phonon anharmonicity and interactions.
• Friday, Feb. 27, Thermal conductivity.

Week 8

• Monday, March 2, Free electron model. Fermi occupation function.
• Wednesday, March 4, Free electron density of states.
• Friday, March 6, no class: Midsemester Break

Spring Break March 9-13

Week 9

• Monday, March 16, Midterm exam #2
• Wednesday, March 18, Electronic heat capacity.
• Friday, March 20, Drude model of electrical conduction.

Week 10

• Monday, March 23, Landau levels.
• Wednesday, March 25, Quantum hall effect, universal conductnce fluctuations.
• Friday, March 27, Nearly free electrons and band gap.

Week 11

• Monday, March 30, Nearly free electrons, central equation, Bloch theorem.
• Wednesday, April 1, Extended and repeated zone diagrams. Physical significance of gaps.
• Friday, April 3, Peierls' instability. Tight binding model.

Week 12

• Monday, April 6, Midterm exam #3
• Wednesday, April 8, Band structure of Graphene.
• Friday, April 10, Semiconductors. Electrons and holes.

Week 13

• Monday, April 13, Effective mass and cyclotron resonance. Intrinsic carrier concentration and Mobility.
• Wednesday, April 15, Doped semiconductors and p-n junction.
• Friday, April 17, No class, Spring Carnival

Week 14

• Monday, April 20, Devices -- diodes and thermo-electric effects.
• Wednesday, April 22, Fermi surfaces of metals. Electron and hole orbits.
• Friday, April 24, Experimental measurements of Fermi surface

Week 15

• Monday, April 27, Fermi surfaces of specific metals
• Wednesday, April 29, Heisenberg and Stoner theories of ferromagnetism
• Friday, May 1, Midterm exam #4.

Final Exam will be replaced by the 4th midterm on Friday, May 1.