Required in stage
Optional in stage
First term
Both terms
Not organised
This year
Next year
Alternating years
Prerequisites
Identical coursesCondensed Matter Physics (B-KUL-H08E8A)
English
Second term
Cannot be taken as part of an examination contractCannot be taken as part of a credit contract
N. 
Chalmers tekniska högskolaAims
This course in taught at Chalmers Tekniska Högskola.
More information: https://www.chalmers.se/en/education/your-studies/find-course-and-programme-syllabi/course-syllabus/FKA091/?acYear=2024%2F2025
Is included in these courses of study
Activities
7.5 ects. Condensed Matter Physics: Theory (B-KUL-H08E8a)
EnglishFormat: LectureSecond termN. Content
Electronic bonds and energy bands in crystalline solids
- aspects of quantum chemistry, phenomenological and ab initio band structure methods, pseudopotentials, density functional theory
Transport properties
- Semiclassical electron dynamics in electric and magnetic fields, tunneling phenomena, quantum transport in nanostructures
Disordered matter
- quasicrystals, amorphous semiconductors, liquid crystals
Magnetism
- models based on local magnetic moments and and itinerant electrons, spin density waves, materials for applications such as spintronics and magnetic sensors
Superconductivity
- thermodynamics, phenomenological (Ginsburg-Landau) and microscopic (BCS) theories of conventional superconductors, high temperature superconductors
Nuclear methods in condensed matter
- nuclear magnetic resonance, Mössbauer effect
Course material
Feng Duan and Jin Guojin, Introduction to condensed matter, vol 1, World Scientific (2005), ISBN981-238-711-0, 981-256-070-X (pbk)
Supplementary material distributed during the course.
Michael P. Marder: Condensed Matter Physics (corrected printing), Wiley Interscience (2000), ISBN: 0-471-17779-2
An alternative book is "Solid State Physics" by Neil W. Ashcroft and N. David Mermin (published in 1976; ISBN-13: 9780030839931). Nearly all the course material will be found in both books.
Another alternative textbook is "Introduction to Condensed Matter Physics, vol. 1" by Feng Duan och Jin Guojun. This comprehensive textbook published by World Scientific in 2005 (ISBN981-238-711-0, 981-256-070-X (pbk)) covers a lot of modern developments. On the other hand it is somewhat sketchy in its approach.
Format: more information
An overall goal is that students who successfully complete the course will have acquired an insight into and a perspective on the general status of condensed matter physics with respect to phenomena and theoretical models. More specialized knowledge will certainly be required in order to fully appreciate the discussion in current reviews and original papers in the vast field of condensed matter physics. However, the course will make a large body of such texts accessible to the students in some detail.
More specific goals are that students after having completed the course will be able to:
- recapitulate theoretical models used to describe properties discussed in the course, while accounting for their limitations as well as for the experimental observations that have been used or could be used to evaluate the validity of the models.
- apply theoretical models encountered in the course to account for specific experimental observations.
- bring together elements of different theoretical models to account for specific experimental observations.
- bring together elements of different theoretical models to predict the outcome of a real world or gedanken experiment