PHY 311: SOLID-STATE PHYSICS1(2 UNITS)

NOTES 1
DEPARTMENT OF
PHYSICS&ASTRONOMY
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
First Semester, December, 2022
COURSE CONTENT
1. Lattice vibrations of monoatomic chains
2. Crystal binding.
 REFERENCECES
• [1] C. Kittel, Introduction to Solid State Physics, 8th Ed.
(John Wiley and Sons, 2005). California, Berkeley.
• [2] J. S. Blakemore, Solid State Physics, 2nd Ed. (W. B.
Saunders Co., Philadelphia, 1974).
• [3] N. W. Ashcroft and N. D. Mermin, Solid State Physics
(Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1976).
• [4] M. A. Omar, Elementary Solid State Physics: Principles
and Applications (AddisonWesley, Reading, MA
• [5]. E. Hecht and A. Zajac, Optics (Addison-Wesley, Reading,
[3]. Mass., 1974). B. D. Cullity, Elements of X-ray Diffraction,
2nd Ed. (Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass, 1978).
 ATOMS AND BONDING
• Atoms/molecules are bond together to form the liquids/solids.

• Atom is composed of a nucleus which contains protons and

neutrons; surrounding the nucleus are the electrons.

• Atoms can combine with themselves or other atoms.

• The valence electrons, i.e. the outer most shell electrons govern
the chemistry of atoms.

• Atoms come together to form gases, liquids or solids depending

on the strength of the attractive forces between them.

•
FORMATION OF MATTER: INTERATOMIC FORCES
• In order for matter to condense, there must be
an attractive force between the particles to
promote their mutual gathering together. Of the
four fundamental forces in Nature, the two
nuclear forces (strong and weak) play no role in
the condensation process and the gravitational
force is far too weak to drive the process at
ordinary terrestrial temperatures and pressures.
Instead, the fundamental force that binds
particles together in condensed matter arises
from electrostatic interactions.
 CRYSTAL BINDING
The atomic bonding can be classified as:

1. ionic,
2. covalent,
3. metallic,
4. van der Waals, and
5. hydrogen.

• In all types of bonding the electrostatic force acts

between charged
THE PERIODIC TABLE (SOME SECTIONS)
ATOMIC STRUCTURE AND INTERATOMIC BONDING
THE PERIODIC TABLE
1. IONIC BONDING
IONIC BONDING CONTD
POTENTIAL DUE COULOMB INTERACTION
A net pair interaction potential
Again, this attractive interaction is overshadowed at
short separation distances by the repulsive Pauli
exclusion interaction to produce a net pair interaction
potential of the form:

Note that, since the attractive potential for the ionic

force varies as just 1/rij, it is far more effective at large
separations than was the van der Waals force and
2. COVALENT BONDING
•Elemental semiconductors of silicon (Si),
germanium (Ge) and diamond are bonded by this
mechanism and these are purely covalent.

•The bonding is due to the sharing of electrons.

•Covalently bonded solids are hard, high melting

points, and insoluble in all ordinary solvents.
IONIC AND COVALENT BONDING COMPARED
3. METALLIC BONDING
3.METALLIC BONDING CONTD
4. VAN DER WAALS BONDING
4. VAN DER WAALS BONDING CONTD
 STRENGTH OF BONDING FORCES
• VAN DE RWAALS < HYDROGEN < METALLIC < IONIC < COVALENT

• THE STRONGEST BONDING IS COVLENT BONDING;

• THE WEAKEST BONDING IS VAN DER WAALS

BONDING.
The van der Waals pair interaction (solid curve)
showing the separate attractive and repulsive
contributions (dashed curves)
VAN DER WAALS BOND: Weak, mutually attractive force
•A weak, mutually attractive force whose
pairwise potential energy varies inversely with
the separation as:

•where rij is the separation between the atom

centers, and E and σ are appropriately chosen
energy and length scales, respectively.
VAN DER WAALS Repulsive Force
A repulsive force whose pair potential varies
approximately is given as:
The total pair interaction potential
• Together with the attractive van der Waals
interaction, the total pair interaction
potential, also known as the Lennard-Jones
potential, is:
POTENTIAL ENERGY DIAGRAM FOR ATOMS
POTENTIAL ENERGY DIAGRAM EXPLAINED
TOTAL POTENTIAL ENERGY FOR N ATOMS:
COHESIVE ENERGY FOR VAN DER WAALS CRYSTAL
• The total potential energy for N assembled
atoms is thus:

where N is the number of atoms in the crystal.

TOTAL POTENTIAL ENERGY
TOTAL POTENTIAL ENERGY
 TOTAL POTENTIAL ENERGY
Equation (3.12) only expresses the dependence of the
total potential energy on the nearest neighbor distance.
To obtain the potential energy of the crystal at
equilibrium, we thus seek the value of ro that minimizes
UTot. Hence, we must first differentiate Eq. (3.12) with
respect to ro to find the equilibrium nearest neighbor
distance, and then substitute that result back into Eq.
(3.12). We obtain the equilibrium nearest neighbor
distance as:
EQUILIBRIUM ENERGY AND SEPARATION
 LATTICE (CRYSTAL) VIBRATIONS: MONOATOMIC LATTICES
• “Solid” particles continue to move and execute small,
localized vibrations about a fixed point in space.
• The nature of this vibrational motion and its impact on the
thermal properties of a solid is very important.
• Considering a simple model of masses connected by ideal
springs to demonstrate how vibrations of individual atoms
are, in reality, a consequence of propagating waves traveling
through the crystal lattice.
• The concept of a quantum of elastic wave, known as a
phonon will be introduced in order to connect these waves
with the quantum mechanical perspective of each atom
behaving as a quantized harmonic oscillator.
 LATTICE (CRYSTAL) VIBRATIONS: MONOATOMIC BASIS
• A crystal is classified as a solid, but this does not imply
that it is devoid of motion.
• At a microscopic level the atoms of the crystal lattice
vibrate, and these vibrations ultimately control the
thermodynamic properties of the solid.
• The bonding between any two particles is described by a
pairwise interaction, u(rij), that contains both attractive
and repulsive interactions.
LATTICE VIBRATIONS: MOMOATOMIC LATTICE
THE VIBRATION OF 3 LINES POINTS OF LATTICE
LATTICE VIBRATIONS
LATTICE VIBRATIONS
LATTICE VIBRATIONS
LATTICE VIBRATIONS: DISPERSION RELATIONS
LATTICE VIBRATIONS: Brillouin zone
LATTICE VIBRATIONS: Periodicity function
LATTICE VIBRATIONS: Group velocity (vg)
LATTICE VIBRATIONS: special cases