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This is a revised edition of the 1999 text on the electronic structure and properties of solids, similar in spirit to the well-known 1980 text Electronic Structure and the Properties of Solids. The revisions include an added chapter on glasses, and rewritten sections on spin–orbit coupling, magnetic alloys, and actinides. The text covers covalent semiconductors, ionic insulators, simple metals, and transition-metal and f-shell-metal systems. It focuses on the most important aspects of each system, making what approximations are necessary in order to proceed analytically and obtain formulae for the properties. Such back-of-the-envelope formulae, which display the dependence of any property on the parameters of the system, are characteristic of Harrison's approach to electronic structure, as is his simple presentation and his provision of all the needed parameters.
In spite of the diversity of systems and materials, the approach is systematic and coherent, combining the tight-binding (or atomic) picture with the pseudopotential (or free-electron) picture. This provides parameters — the empty-core radii as well as the covalent energies — and conceptual bases for estimating the various properties of all these systems. Extensive tables of parameters and properties are included.
The book has been written as a text, with problems at the end of each chapter, and others can readily be generated by asking for estimates of different properties, or different materials, than those treated in the text. In fact, the ease of generating interesting problems reflects the extraordinary utility and simplicity of the methods introduced. Developments since the 1980 publication have made the theory simpler and much more accurate, besides allowing much wider application.
Sample Chapter(s)
Chapter 1: The Basic Approach (2,348 KB)
Contents:
- The Basic Approach
- Bonding in Tetrahedral Semiconductors
- Elastic Properties of Semiconductors
- The Dielectric Properties of Semiconductors
- Semiconductor Energy Bands
- Electronic Properties
- Effects of Lattice Distortions
- Impurities and Defects
- Bonding in Ionic Crystals
- Elastic Properties of Ionic Crystals
- Dielectric Properties of Ionic Solids
- Covalent Insulators, SiO2
- Simple Metals, Electronic Structure
- Simple Metals, Bonding Properties
- Transition Metals
- f-Shell Metals
- Transition-Metal (AB) Compounds
- Other Transition and f-Shell Compounds
- Surfaces and Interfaces
- Other Systems
- Glasses
Readership: Students and researchers in condensed matter physics, solid state physics, semiconductor science, physical chemistry, chemical physics, materials science, applied physics and solid state chemistry.
