Physics 152B/232, Spring 2021
Course requirements and grading policy:
1) Attend all 20 lectures (or as many as possible),
pay attention at the lectures, ask and answer questions (about the lecture material) during the lectures. 20% of grade
2) Homework problems will be assigned every one or two weeks, you should solve them and hand them in
by the due date. 40% of grade
3)
Special topic paper
due 10th week, oral presentation of the paper during finals week. 40% of grade
4) There will be a weekly discussion section where we will discuss homework problems, any questions
you would like to pose about solid state physics, or about physics in general, or about anything, discuss topics of
current interest, etc. 0% of grade
TENTATIVE COURSE SCHEDULE
The main references to the material that will be covered each week are the chapters in Alloul's book (Al) and Ibach-Luth book (Ib) indicated below, and a bit of Rössler's book.
Please read some or all of it ahead of the lectures. Other reading material
from other books listed on the webpage and other sources will be given during the course.
Week 1: Introduction. Chemical bonding in solids. Tight binding (LCAO) approximation. (Chpt. 1 of Al, Chpt. 1 of Ib).
Week 2: Bloch states and Wannier states. Band structures in 2d and 3d.
(Chpt. 3 of Al, Chpt. 7 of Ib). Second quantization (Rössler 4.3).
Week 3: Approximate methods to deal with interacting
electrons (BO, HF, TF, DFT, DMFT, DMRG, QMC, ED, ...) (Rössler 2.2, 4.4, 5.1). Hubbard models.
Week 4: Electron transport. Boltzmann equation. (Chpt. 4 of Al, Chpt. 9 of Ib).
Week 5: Superconductivity and magnetism: overview
(parts of Chpts. 5 and 8 of Al and Chpts. 8 and 10 of Ib).
Week 6: Electrodynamics and thermodynamics of superconductors. (Chpts. 5, 6 of Al, Chpt. 10 of Ib).
Week 7: Microscopic origin(s) of superconductivity. (Chpt. 7 of Al, Chpt. 10 of Ib).
Week 8: Magnetism of insulators and metals. (Chpt. 8 of Al, Chpt. 8 of Ib).
Week 9: Magnetic phase transitions. (Chpt. 12 of Al, Chpt. 8 of Ib).
Week 10: Semiconductors. (Chpt. 12 of Ib).
Holidays: Mon, May 31