This textbook emphasizes a few fundamental principles and extracts from them a wealth of information. This approach also unifies an enormous and diverse subject which seems to consist of too many disjoint pieces. The book starts with the absolute minimum of formal tools, emphasizes the basic principles, and employs physical reasoning (" a little thinking and imagination" to quote R. Feynman) to obtain results. Continuous comparison with experimental data leads naturally to a gradual refinement of the concepts and to more sophisticated methods. After the initial overview with an emphasis on the physical concepts and the derivation of results by dimensional analysis, The Physics of Solids deals with the Jellium Model (JM) and the Linear Combination of Atomic Orbitals (LCAO) approaches to solids and introduces the basic concepts and information regarding metals and semiconductors. The remainder, constituting enrichment and elective material, re-examines the model under more realistic assumptions as well as new, more advanced subjects. While prerequisites include quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical physics, appendices summarizing these subjects are included to make the book more self-contained. The basic text is enhanced with worked problems, copious illustrations, chapter-end exercises and summaries. The approach, which emphasizes the underlying physical concepts, unifies to some extent a subject that can seem too diverse and consisting of too many disjoint pieces, requires from students less memorizing of facts and formalisms but more thinking.
Author(s): Eleftherios N. Economou (auth.)
Series: Graduate Texts in Physics
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 865
Tags: Condensed Matter Physics; Engineering, general; Metallic Materials; Surfaces and Interfaces, Thin Films
Front Matter....Pages I-XIX
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Basic Principles Summarized....Pages 3-20
Basic Principles in Action....Pages 21-45
A First Acquaintance with Condensed Matter....Pages 47-79
Front Matter....Pages 81-81
The Jellium Model and Metals I: Equilibrium Properties....Pages 83-111
The Jellium Model and Metals II: Response to External Perturbations....Pages 113-147
Solids as Supergiant Molecules: LCAO....Pages 149-175
Semiconductors and Other Tetravalent Solids....Pages 177-209
Beyond the Jellium and the LCAO: An Outline....Pages 211-241
Front Matter....Pages 243-243
Crystal Structure and Ionic Vibrations....Pages 245-272
Electrons in Periodic Media. The Role of Magnetic Field....Pages 273-300
Methods for Calculating the Band Structure....Pages 301-323
Pseudopotentials in Action....Pages 325-347
Front Matter....Pages 349-349
Simple Metals and Semiconductors Revisited....Pages 351-391
Closed-Shell Solids....Pages 393-408
Transition Metals and Compounds....Pages 409-436
Artificial Periodic Structures....Pages 437-468
Front Matter....Pages 469-469
Surfaces and Interfaces....Pages 471-498
Disordered and Other Nonperiodic Solids....Pages 499-541
Finite Systems....Pages 543-565
Front Matter....Pages 567-567
Magnetic Materials, I: Phenomenology....Pages 569-594
Front Matter....Pages 567-567
Magnetic Materials II: Microscopic View....Pages 595-624
Superconductivity, I: Phenomenology....Pages 625-654
Superconductivity, II: Microscopic Theory....Pages 655-682
Front Matter....Pages 683-683
Elements of Electrodynamics of Continuous Media....Pages 685-696
Elements of Quantum Mechanics....Pages 697-712
Elements of Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics....Pages 713-722
Dielectric Function, $$\varepsilon (k , \omega )$$ : Formulas and Uses....Pages 723-732
Waves in Continuous Elastic Media....Pages 733-736
The Method LCAO Applied to Molecules....Pages 737-754
Boltzmann’s Equation....Pages 755-758
Tables....Pages 759-778
Back Matter....Pages 779-865
