Condensed Matter Physics FKA091
7.5 ECTS, fall 2016

Lecturers and examiners
Henrik Johannesson, Soliden 3007, phone: 786 9164, e-mail: henrik.johannesson@physics.gu.se (office hour: Monday 5/12 15:00-16:00)
Ermin Malic, Origo 7115, phone: 772 3263, e-mail: ermin.malic@chalmers.se (office hour: Tuesdays 16:00-17:00)

Guest Lecturers
Jan Budich, e-mail: jan.budich@physics.gu.se
Paul Erhart, e-mail: erhart@chalmers.se
Stellan Östlund, e-mail: stellan.ostlund@physics.gu.se

Course Assistants
Oleksandr Balabanov, Soliden 3008, e-mail: oleksandr.balabanov@physics.gu.se (office hours: Mondays 14:00-15:00 and Fridays 15:00-16:00)
Roland Jago, Soliden 3022, e-mail: roland.jago@chalmers.se (office hours: Monday and Wednesdays 15:30-16:30)

Student representatives
David Barker , Martin Ekman, Henrik Gingsjö, Alice Hamrin, Ingrid Strandberg



About the course

This Masters level course introduces to the students phenomena, concepts, and methods of central importance to condensed matter physics. The emphasis will be on experimental observations and theoretical models that have contributed to the progress of the field. The focus will be on quantum mechanics-based microscopic models that are employed to account for properties asscoiated with electrons in metals, semiconductors and insulators, such as diffusion, conductivity, superconductivity and magnetism. The course will be divided into two parts (according to the Born-Oppenheimer approximation): 1. Electronic and optical properties of solids and 2. Lattice properties of solids. The first part will be given by Ermin Malic and the second part by Henrik Johannesson.


Course material
Relevant texts will be be made available as printed material distributed in the lectures, or as electronic links to literature available on the web. Many of the subjects discussed in the lectures are covered (with different emphasis and perspectives) in the following text books:
"Solid State Physics" by Neil W. Ashcroft and N. David Mermin (published in 1976; ISBN-13: 9780030839931).
"Condensed Matter Physics" by Michael P. Marder (corrected printing, Wiley Interscience, 2000; ISBN:0-471-17779-2).
"Fundamentals of Many-Body Physics" by Wolfgang Nolting (Springer Verlag, 2009).
"A Quantum Approach to Condensed Matter Physics" by Philip L. Taylor and Olle Heinonen (Cambridge University Press, 2002).


Examination
Homework problems (deadlines 11/11, 22/11, 6/12, 15/12). 50% of the total possible score on the graded problems is required to take part in individual oral exams in the exam period in January. For grade criteria, please see Oral exam grades.


Schedule
See schedule on Time Edit. The Thursday slot will be used occasionally for additional regular or guest lectures (to be announced).



Logbook and suggested reading

Lecture 1: Introduction. Main concepts. Theoretical approaches. Born-Oppenheimer approximation. Slides.

Lecture 2: Bloch theorem. Band structure (incl. graphene). Density of states. Slides.

Lecture 3: Coulomb interaction. Second quantization. Slides.

Lecture 4: Jellium & Hubbard models. Hartree-Fock apporximation. Slides

Lecture 5: Screening. Plasmons. Slides

Lecture 6: Excitons. Statistical operator. Semiconductor Bloch equations. Slides

Lecture 7: Boltzmann equation. Slides

Lecture 8: Density functional theory. Slides

Lecture 9: Optical absorption. Slides

Lecture 10: Differential transmission spectra. Statistics of light. Slides

Lecture 11: Phonons. Slides

Lecture 12: Electron-phonon interaction. Slides

Lectures 13 and 14: Superconductivity. Slides

Lecture 15: More on superconductivity. Slides

Lecture 16: Quasicrystals.

Lecture 17: Topological superconductors. Slides

Lecture 18: Charge and heat transport. Slides

Lecture 19: Mesoscopic transport.

Lecture 20: Topological insulators. Slides


Learning outcomes, Lectures 11-20. Slides

Blackboard notes, Lectures 11-20. Slides



Homework problems

HW set 1

HW set 2

HW set 3

HW set 4



Last updated 2 January 2017.