About the Book

This book examines essential concepts in Solid-State Physics. The accompanying DVD, containing 40 lectures of approximately an hour each, provides the student with the classroom experience. Animations are also included in the DVD to enable a more visual experience to understand the discussed concepts. Significant effort has been put in to present the material at the right level of detail such that it can be accessed and utilized by undergraduate and postgraduate students with a wide range of backgrounds. A conscious effort has been made to ensure that the level of detail used in the presentation enables students to stay with the content throughout.

·Introduction – Use and Study of Materials
·Properties of Materials
·Thermal Expansion
·Electrical Conductivity
·Free Electron Gas and The Ideal Gas
·The Drude Model
·Large Systems, Statistical Mechanics and The Maxwell–Boltzmann Statistics
·A Brief History of Quantum Mechanics; Its Use in the Drude–Sommerfeld Model
·Fermi–Dirac Statistics
·Anisotropy, Periodic Potential, Confinement and Quantization
·Density of States, Fermi Energy and The Electronic Contribution to Specific Heat at Constant Volume
·The Reciprocal Space
·Wigner–Seitz Cell, Brillouin Zones and The Origin of Bands
·Bands, Band Gaps, Free Electron Approximation and Tight Binding Approximation
·Material Phenomena Explained using Theories Developed
·Superconductivity and The Bose–Einstein Statistics
·Physics of Nano-Scale Materials

About the Author

Dr Prathap Haridoss is Professor in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at IIT, Madras. His research interests include PEM Fuel Cells, Carbon Nanomaterials including Carbon Nanotubes, Semiconducting Nanomaterials, and recycling printed circuit boards. He has developed a communication device for the speech impaired and a footwear-based device to enable gait analysis by timed mapping of foot contact points. He is also working on developing an exoskeleton to assist differently-abled as well as elderly people.

Table of Contents:
Preface Chapter 1 Introduction – Use and Study of Materials 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Materials and the Engineer 1.3 Materials and a Scientist 1.4 Modeling a Material 1.5 Approach Used in This Book Chapter 2 Properties of Materials 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Mechanical Properties 2.3 Chemical Properties 2.4 Electrical Properties 2.5 Thermal Properties 2.6 Magnetic Properties 2.7 Optical Properties 2.8 Understanding Material Properties Chapter 3 Thermal Expansion 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Use of Thermal Expansion / Contraction 3.3 Model for Thermal Expansion Chapter 4 Electrical Conductivity 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Charge Carriers 4.3 Direct Current Conductivity Measurement 4.4 Alternating Current Conductivity Measurement 4.5 Short Note on Superconductivity Chapter 5 Free Electron Gas and The Ideal Gas 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The Free Electron Gas 5.3 Packing Fraction in Solids 5.4 Reasons for Caution with the Free Electron Model 5.5 The Kinetic Theory of Gases Chapter 6 The Drude Model 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Electrical Conductivity 6.3 Thermal Conductivity 6.4 The Wiedemann–Franz Law 6.5 Shortcomings of the Drude Model Chapter 7 Large Systems, Statistical Mechanics and The Maxwell–Boltzmann Statistics 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Systems with Large Collections of Particles 7.3 Statistical Mechanics 7.4 The Maxwell–Boltzmann Statistics Chapter 8 A Brief History of Quantum Mechanics; Its Use in the Drude–Sommerfeld Model 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Classical Particles and Quantum Mechanical Particles 8.3 A Brief History of Quantum Mechanics 8.4 The Drude–Sommerfeld Model Chapter 9 Fermi–Dirac Statistics 9.1 Introduction 9.2 The Fermi–Dirac Statistics 9.3 Features of the Fermi–Dirac Distribution 9.4 Comparing Maxwell–Boltzmann and Fermi–Dirac Distributions Chapter 10 Anisotropy, Periodic Potential, Confinement and Quantization 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Anisotropy in Crystalline Solids 10.3 Periodic Potential in a Crystalline Solid 10.4 Confinement and Quantization – Waves on a String Analogy 10.5 Confinement and Quantization – Quantum Mechanical Approach Chapter 11 Density of States, Fermi Energy and The Electronic Contribution to Specific Heat at Constant Volume 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Density of States 11.3 Aspects Associated with Electrons Filling Energy Levels 11.4 Fermi Energy 11.5 Fermi Surface 11.6 Fermi Temperature 11.7 Estimating the Electronic Contribution to Specific Heat at Constant Volume 11.8 Further Improving the Model of the Solid Chapter 12 The Reciprocal Space 12.1 Introduction 12.2 Defining Reciprocal Space 12.3 Properties of Reciprocal Space 12.4 Diffraction in Reciprocal Space 12.5 The Ewald Sphere 12.6 Crystal Lattices in Reciprocal Space 12.7 Reciprocal Lattice as the Fourier Transform of the Real Lattice 12.8 Another Way to Define or Describe Reciprocal Space Chapter 13 Wigner–Seitz Cell, Brillouin Zones and The Origin of Bands 13.1 Introduction 13.2 The Wigner–Seitz Cell 13.3 The Brillouin Zone 13.4 Significance of Bragg Planes 13.5 Interaction of Electron Waves with Brillouin Zones 13.6 The Origin of Bands Chapter 14 Bands, Band Gaps, Free Electron Approximation and Tight Binding Approximation 14.1 Introduction 14.2 Analytical Approach to The Band Structure – Free Electron Approximation 14.3 Band Structure and Types of Materials 14.4 Band Structure – The Tight Binding Approximation 14.5 Effect of Pressure on Band Structure 14.6 Comparison of Free Electron and Tight Binding Approximations 14.7 Conventions Regarding Representing Band Diagrams Chapter 15 Material Phenomena Explained using Theories Developed 15.1 Introduction 15.2 Semiconductors 15.3 Types of Semiconductors 15.4 Effect of Temperature on Semiconductors 15.5 Optical Properties of Semiconductors 15.6 The Utility of E versus k Diagrams 15.7 Phonons 15.8 Magnetism 15.9 Electron Compounds Chapter 16 Superconductivity and The Bose–Einstein Statistics 16.1 Introduction 16.2 Superconductivity 16.3 The Meissner Effect 16.4 The BCS Theory 16.5 The Bose–Einstein Statistics 16.6 The Bose–Einstein Condensate Chapter 17 Physics of Nano-Scale Materials 17.1 Introduction 17.2 The Exciton 17.3 Confining the Exciton Summary Practice Questions Answers Bibliography Index