MTLE-6120: Advanced Electronic Properties of Materials
(Spring 2023)

• Instructor: Ravishankar Sundararaman (sundar@rpi.edu)
• Lectures: Tuesdays and Fridays, 10:00 to 11:50 am
• Location: MRC 136
• Office hours: Thursdays 5-6 pm on WebEx
• Primary text:
  • Principles of Electronic Materials and Devices by S.O. Kasap
• Background reading (as needed):
  • Introduction to Solid State Physics by C. Kittel
  • Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by D.J. Griffiths
  • Introduction to Electrodynamics by D.J. Griffiths
• Syllabus handout

Lecture slides

• Introduction
• Theoretical background
  • Maxwell’s equations in materials
  • Classical Drude theory of conduction
  • Basic quantum mechanics
  • Atoms, many-electron theories and the periodic table
  • Quantum kinetics: Fermi’s Golden rule
  • Band theory of solids
• Material properties
  • Fermi theory of metals
  • Electron transport: phonons and electron-phonon scattering
  • Intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors
  • Insulating materials: dielectrics, ferroelectrics, piezoelectrics etc.
  • Magnetism: dia-, para- and ferro-magnetism, hysteresis
  • Superconductivity
  • Optical properties: absorption, emission, luminescence, fluorescence, lasing
  • Low-dimensional materials
• Interface properties
  • Metal-vacuum interfaces: thermionic and field emission
  • Metal-metal junctions: Seebeck effect, thermocouples, Peltier effect
  • Metal-semiconductor Schottky junctions
  • Semiconductor p-n junction diodes; LEDs, lasers and photovoltaics
  • Semiconductor transistors for logic and memory

Homework assignments

• HW1 due 1/20/2023 (Solution)
• HW2 due 1/27/2023 (Solution)
• HW3 due 2/3/2023 (Solution)
• HW4 due 2/10/2023 (Solution)
• HW5 due 2/17/2023 (Solution)
• HW6 due 3/3/2023 (Solution)
• HW7 due 3/17/2023 (Solution)
• HW8 due 3/24/2023 (Solution)
• HW9 due 3/31/2023 (Solution)
• HW10 due 4/7/2023 (Solution)
• HW11 due 4/14/2023 (Solution)