Description:
| Aims: The aims of this unit are to introduce areas of condensed matter physics that extend beyond the conventional domain of regular, infinite, crystalline solids.
Learning Outcomes: After taking this unit the student should be able to:
* relate the electronic, optical and mechanical properties of real crystals to their defects;
* make quantitative estimates of the parameters that govern the behaviour of real solids;
* describe the structure and properties of amorphous solids;
* describe, compare and contrast experimental probes of solid surfaces;
* describe the structure, phase behaviour, and diffusive properties of polymers, colloids and liquid crystals;
* describe the principal structural and relaxational properties of solid, liquid, and soft matter glasses in terms of simple models.
Skills: Numeracy T/F A, Problem Solving T/F A.
Content: Real solids (3 hours): Defects in crystals; point defects and dislocations in crystals. Effect on electronic, optical and mechanical properties. Point defects in thermal equilibrium. Self diffusion. Ionic conductivity. Colour centres.
Surface physics (6 hours): Clean and real surfaces, UHV, epitaxial growth. Surface energy; nearest neighbour bond model. Surface nets and unit meshes, reconstructions, adsorbates, the work function. Auger, UV and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Reciprocal nets and diffraction. LEED, the scanning tunnelling and atomic force microscopes.
Introduction to amorphous solids (3 hours): Topological disorder. Determination of glass structure. Short range order, vibrational states and thermal conductivity of glasses.
Soft condensed matter (10 hours): Polymers; chemical structure.
Models for the conformations of polymers; the random walk, large N limit, freely jointed chains, Gaussian chains. Polymer solutions and melts. Colloids; colloid structure, Brownian motion, sedimentation. Interacting colloid particles, phase behaviour, crystals and glasses. Liquid Crystals; phase behaviour, optical properties. Soft matter glasses; phenomenology, simple models of the glass transition.
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