FUNDAMENTALS OF SOLID STATE PHYSICS

FUNDAMENTALS OF SOLID STATE PHYSICS For Post-Graduate Students of all Indian Universities, IAS and Allied Competition. In the early days of Science, solids were known to have atoms which are more firm while in liquids and gases atom are slippery that can easily move past each other. In nineteenth century, scientists related the properties of crystals to structural features visible by a microscope and to chemical composition. The X-ray diffraction in 1913 and the periodic nature of crystals provided new theoretical concepts of materials. New activity started in Solid State Physics and Chemistry. Review of various crystal structures and their symmetry properties suggested that properties of materials are chiefly determined by interatomic forces and the nature of atomic aggregation. Solid State Physics is now no more restricted to the study of solids alone but is a basic physics of all materials. It has introduced lattice vibrations, diffusion and new theoretical concepts of effective mass of electrons to deal interaction of electron with electron or any periodic field, the concept of the hole which has led to the development of transistors and its various applications and other basic concepts of materials evolving out of these studies. The study of Solid State Physics is becoming a basic tool in Modern Physics to unfold the properties of materials.