Physics of Materials

Properties of materials, thermal expansion, DC and AC techniques to measure electronic conductivity, free electron gas, Drude model for electronic conductivity and for thermal conductivity; Successes and Limitations of the Drude model The Wiedemann Franz Law; Statistical Mechanics, Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics; history of quantum mechanics; Drude Sommerfeld model, Fermi-Dirac Statistics; Confinement and quantization; calculating density of available states for electrons; Fermi Energy, Fermi Surface, Fermi Temperature; Reciprocal space ; Wigner seitz cells Brillouin zones; Calculating allowed and forbidden energy levels; Description of tight binding approximation, impact of inter atomic spacing on band gaps. Comparison of free electron approximation and tight binding approximation. Effect of pressure on band gaps; Direct Band gap, indirect Band gap semiconductors; Magnetic properties; Electron compounds/Hume Rothery phases. Phonons, Optoelectronic properties; Superconductivity, Bose-Einstein Statistics; Physics of nano scale materials.