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PHYS315: Notes and supplementary material

Every weekend I will post here the material to be covered during the coming week. I will bring copies of the write-ups to class and distribute them in the lecture before we start discussing them. It is strongly recommended that you read my notes BEFORE we discuss them in class. You will certainly have to read them sooner or later. If you do it sooner, you will already have some idea what I will talk about, you will be able to ask questions for things that did not make sense while you read the material, etc.

Upgrades to course notes: I will post here a list of corrections to the notes, and the date when they were made. This will minimize the need to reprint the whole thing and limit the waste of paper. If you see any typos, errors, etc. in the notes, please let me know asap.

  • Typo fixed in "Bonding", top equation on pg 15 has + inside the paranthesis.


    Lecture Date Notes handed in class What was covered
      Sept. 2 Imagine UBC  no lecture  
    1 Sept. 4 brief review of QM  Introductions, material to be covered, general expectations etc.  
    2 Sept. 9 Notes: The elements
    Supplementary notes
    Orbitron website  
    Brief review of QM.
    The elements: generalities 
    3 Sept. 11   The elements: spectrum and eigenfunctions 
    4 Sept. 16 Notes: Bonding
    get assignment 1 
    The elements: the periodic table
    Bonding: van der Waals bonds 
    5 Sept. 18   Bonding: van der Waals bonds (cont'd)
    Bonding: H2+ molecule.  
    6 Sept. 23   Bonding: H2+ molecule. 
    7 Sept. 25   Bonding: covalent bonds
    Bonding: ionic bonds 
    8 Sept. 30 return assignment 1; get assignment 2   Bonding: ionic bonds (cont'd)
    Bonding: metallic bonds  
    9 Oct. 2   Bonding: metallic bonds (cont'd)
    Bonding: hydrogen bonds 
    10 Oct. 7 Notes: Crystals
    Supplementary notes  
    Crystals: 1D lattices, basis, lattice vectors, unit cell, Brillouin zone
    Crystals: 2D lattices  
    11 Oct. 9   Crystals: 3D lattices 
    12 Oct. 14 get assignment 3
    Notes: X ray scattering 
    Crystals: 3D lattices (cont'd)
    X-ray scattering  
    13 Oct. 16 return assignment 2   X-ray scattering (cont'd) 
    14 Oct. 21 Notes: Band structures  Bloch theorem and a 1D example: tight-binding vs. nearly free electrons.  
    15 Oct. 23   Metals, semiconductors, insulators 
    16 Oct. 28 return assignment 3; get assignment 4  MIDTERM  
    17 Oct. 30 Notes: Properties of metals and insulators   Thermal properties  
    18 Nov. 4   Transport properties: metals 
    19 Nov. 6   Transport properties: semiconductors
    Optical properties: semiconductors 
      Nov. 11 Remembrance Day   
    20 Nov. 13 Notes: Phonons
    return assignment 4; get assignment 5 
    Optical properties: metals
    Simple harmonic oscillator 
    21 Nov. 18   Acoustic and optical phonons 
    22 Nov. 20   Optical phonons (contd)
    Additional topic: Polarons 
    23 Nov. 25     Additional topic: Polarons
    Additional topic: Superconductivity, high-T superconductivity, magnetism  
    24 Nov. 27 return assignment 5    Additional topic: Superconductivity, high-T superconductivity, magnetism