Fundamentals of Condensed Matter and Crystalline Physics
Fundamentals of Condensed Matter and Crystalline Physics
Welcome
Welcome to the author's own interim textbook webpage. Your comments, questions and other feedback are welcome at: sidebottom@creighton.edu
News
Ivan Smalyukh of University of Colorado recently offered a review of the textbook in the May 2013 issue of Physics Today that might be of interest.
Moreton Moore of Royal Holloway University of London has also offered a review of the textbook in Crystallography Reviews.
What
Fundamentals of Condensed Matter and Crystalline Physics
available August 2012 through Cambridge University Press or Amazon.com
This undergraduate-level textbook is designed to provide students with an orientation to the broad field of Condensed Matter Physics (and traditional Solid State Physics) by emphasizing major foundational principles (e.g., structure, scattering, symmetry, self-similarity, scaling) that form a body of collective common knowledge which beginners in the field should understand. With this introduction, undergraduate students should be comfortable with much of the terminology and concepts that they are likely to encounter in the research literature.
Unlike most all other texts on the subject of Condensed Matter Physics, this textbook was designed specifically for an undergraduate reader. It is written in a relaxed, engaging style and incorporates numerous figures and illustrations to aid in reader comprehension. A previous course in thermodynamics would be beneficial, but not altogether necessary and only a sophomore level understanding of quantum mechanics, as is obtained in an introductory modern physics course, is needed.
Why
During the eight years that I have taught Solid State Physics, I have been steadily augmenting the material found in Kittel's Introduction to Solid State Physics textbook with what I deem to be key themes of Condensed Matter Physics n the hopes of offering my students a broader perspective of condensed materials than that typically offered in a traditional (crystalline) solid state physics course. As there is no single textbook that provides this broad coverage at an undergraduate level, I have had to splice together subject material from multiple sources with that in Kittel to create the one semester, hybridized course that I envision.
On my most recent sabbatical, I took the opportunity to develop all of the course topics (both traditional, crystalline solid state and more modern, often non-crystalline condensed matter physics) into a working document that would function as a course textbook. The result is a textbook that develops both traditional solid state physics alongside condensed matter physics in a balanced and seamless fashion and emphasizes the larger common significance of structures, dynamics, and phase transitions in materials.
I believe a textbook like this is long overdue. I suspect there are many other departments like ours at Creighton that are similarly restricted in the number of elective courses they can sponsor for their undergraduate students and who might, given the similarity or overlap between solid state physics and condensed matter physics, be interested in combining these into a single offering - if only they had a textbook suited to the task.
Corrections
Below is a link to a growing list of errors that folks have kindly brought to my attention. Thanks to all!
Errata
ErrataKnown errors in first edition:
Figure 1.9: The a3 (prime) unit vector for the primitive lattice for the BCC is incorrectly listed. It should be a positive y_hat (not negative y_hat) unit vector.
Page 15: Although the intent to compare NaCl and CsCl structures as different because of differing sizes of the ions involved is as I intended, I totally screwed up the sizes of the ions and misspoke on page 15. The Cs cation is about 167 pm, the Na cation only 97 pm and the Cl anion is around 181 pm (according to a table in the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics). NaCl prefers the FCC b/c the small Na cation fits well with Cl into this space saving configuration. By contrast, Cs with size near that of Cl, saves space better by filling the large central void of the SC.
Exercise 1.8: The density is incorrectly given as that of the liquid bromine (3.12 g/cc) and should be that of the solid (about 4.05 g/cc). Also the unit vectors are incorrectly labeled with the same index. They should read a_1 = 4.65 Å, a_2 = 6.72 Å, and a_3 = 8.70 Å.
Exercise 2.5: mistakenly refers to As2Ge3 as a "chalcogenide" which is technically incorrect.
Figure 3.2: caption should read: "The Lennard-Jones potential (solid curve) showing ...".
Page 38: third line under Ionic Bond heading should read "... periodic table (the alkalis), whose ...".
Figure 3.7: caption has "2delta+" which should be "2delta-".
Figure 7.4: vertical scale on the right hand side should be between +0.99 to 1.01.
Figure 10.2: vertical axis should be omega (not omega2) and, similarly, the label "4C1/m" should be under a square root.
Figure 10.8: vertical axis should be omega (not omega2) and, similarly, the labels at points b, c, and d should all be under a square root.
Figure 12.1: the units on the vertical axis should be C/T (mJ/mol K^-2).
Page 298, section 16.2.1, 11 lines down: should read L > \xi, not <
In Chapter 4 the notation regarding the various angular momentum and electron spin vectors is unnecessisarily screwy. This pdf file shows the intended format. In the text just above Eq. 4.5 the quantum number for spin should be lower cases and not have a vector over and not have any h-bar. Eq. 4.5 should read similar to Eq. 4.4 but with the g factor multiplying and an S vector in place of the L vector. A similar formulation is warranted for Eq. 4.7 with g' factor and J vector. In the text above Eq. 4.6, the sums should not have the h-bars, but should be sums of the S vectors and L vectors respectively. In Eq. 4.8, lower case letters should be used throughout.
Less of an error than a slight: On page 28, the experiment on packing of M&Ms is credited solely to David Weitz’s group - but in fact in his Science magazine Perspective he was describing the experiment that was carried out in Peter Chaikin’s group at Princeton, published in the same issue. Thanks to Prof. Richard Haglund for this clarification.
FCMCP Ancillary Materials
FCMCP Ancillary MaterialsFigures
Use the links below to download various (jpeg) copies of the figures found in the textbook. As of this time (08/17/12), I cannot verify that all the figures are here or that they are not slightly different from that found in the textbook. Nevertheless, I would estimate they are about 95% faithful to those in the textbook.
Figures in Ch. 1 through Ch. 7
Figures in Ch. 8 through Ch. 11
Figures in Ch. 12 through Appendix
PowerpointTM Lectures
Use the links below to download various (ppt) lecture slides that I last used in 2011. Not all chapters of the textbook are represented and not all the content of the textbook was discussed in class. Most all of the slides have figures in them taken from the www in the heat of lecture-writing that are not properly credited. I make no claims of authorship for these, but would speculate that their use in a purely educational setting might be justified within the context of "fair use".
Old Syllabi and Some Exams