Lecture Notes

This beat-up car certainly does not look nearly as pretty as the "girl's best friend" - the diamond. Under the microscope, however, they both look very similar: both the diamond and the iron are simple crystals: neat periodic arrays of atoms

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• Emergence in Condensed Matter: new phenomena for macroscopic objects

• Atoms as building blocks; inter-atomic forces.

• Review: Modern Physics (elementary concepts in quantum mechanics).

• Phase transitions: gases, liquids, solids, and more...

• Crystalline solids

• Lattice properties

• Free electron model of metals

• Band theory of solids

• Semiconductors

• Semiconductor Devices

• Superconductivity

• Magnetism

• Beyond solids - soft materials: liquid crystals, polymers, membranes, and more.