Solid state physics I

Chapter 1

By: Tadelle H.
 1.1 Introduction
Atomic Models
• Everything around us is made of atoms.
• Atom is the basic unit of matter
• Scientists have turned their attention in to
understanding atom in the early 1900
• A hand full of models has been suggested by
different physicists.
• Three of the particular interest to us in physics are
I. The Rutherford model
II. The Bohr model
III. The cloud model
 The Ruther ford model:
In his famous experiment he bombarded a gold fail with an
alpha particle
Observation Conclusions

 Most of the alpha  The atom is 99.99% empty

particles pass straight space.
through the gold foil.  The nucleus contains a
positive charge and most
 Some of the alpha of the mass of the atom.
particles get deflected  The nucleus is
by very small amounts. approximately 100,000
times smaller than the
 A very few get deflected atom.
greatly.  These two positive charges
 Even fewer get bounced repel each other. The
closer they get, the greater
of the foil and back to the force. The greater the
the left. force, the greater the
amount of deflection.
Continued…
 The Bohr Model

• Niels Bohr turned his attention to describing the electron.

• Prior to the Bohr Model, the accepted model was one which
depicted the electron as an orbiting planet.
• Bohr built upon spectroscopic observations of atoms.
• Spectroscopists noticed that an atom can only absorb
certain energies (colors) of light (the absorption spectrum)
and once excited can only release certain energies (the
emission spectrum) and these energies happen to be the
same.
• Bohr used these observations to argue that the energy of a
bound electron is "quantized." Quantized is a fancy word
meaning only certain quantities of energy are allowed.
 The cloud model
The red dot in the middle
represents the nucleus while the red
dot around the outside represents
an instance of the electron.
• Erwin Schrödinger built upon
the thoughts of Bohr yet took
them in a new direction.
• He developed the probability
function for the Hydrogen
atom (and a few others).
• The probability function
basically describes a cloud-
like region where the electron
is likely to be found. It can not
say with any certainty, where
the electron actually is at any
point in time, yet can describe
where it ought to be.
• The probable locations of the
electron predicted by
Schrödinger's equation
happen to coincide with the
locations specified in Bohr's
model.
 1.2 Lattice points

• Crystal structure
 solid state physics is largely concerned with crystals and electrons in
crystals
 When a crystal grow in a constant environment, the form develops as
if identical building blocks were added continuously as shown in the
figure below. The building blocks are atoms or groups of atoms, so
that a crystal is a three-dimensional periodic array of atoms.
 An ideal crystal is constructed by the infinite repetition of identical
structural units in space. In the simplest crystal the structural unit is a
single atom, as in copper silver… But the smallest structural unit may
comprise many atoms or molecules.
 Continued...
• The structure of all crystals can be described in terms of a lattice, with a
group of atoms attached to every lattice point. The group of atoms is called
the basis, when repeated in space it forms the crystal structure.
Lattice + basis= crystal structure
• A lattice a periodic array of points. A lattice is a mathematical abstraction;
the crystal structure is formed when a basis of atoms attached identically to
every lattice point.
• The lattice is defined by three fundamental translation vectors a1 , a2 , a3
such that the atomic arrangement looks the same in every respect when
viewed from the point r as when viewed from the point

r
,
 r  u1 a 1  u 2 a 2  u 3 a 3
• Where u , u , u are arbitrary integers. The set of points r´ defined by the
1 2 3
equation for allu , u , u defines a lattice.
1 2 3
• A lattice translation operation is defined as the displacement of crystal by a
crystal translation vector

T  u1 a 1  u 2 a 2  u 3 a 3
 Continued…
• Any two lattice points are connected by a vector of this form.
• Primitive lattice cell
The Parallelepiped defined by the primitive axes a1, a2, a3 is called a
primitive cell.
A primitive cell is a minimum volume cell. A primitive cell is a type of cell or
unit cell. A cell will fill all space by the repetition of suitable crystal translation
operation.
 1.3 Fundamental types of lattices
• Crystal lattices can be carried or mapped into themselves by the lattice
translations T and by various other symmetry operations. A typical
symmetry operation is that of rotation about an axis that passes through a
lattice point. Lattices can be found such that One (2π), two (2π/2), three
(2π/3), four (2π/4), and six(2π/6) fold rotations and by integral multiples of
these rotations.
• We can not find a lattice that goes in to itself under other rotations, such as
by 2π/5 radians and 2π/7 radians.
• We can also have mirror reflection m about a plane through a lattice point.
• The inversion operation is composed of a rotation of π followed by reflection
in a plane normal to the rotation axis, the total effect is to replace r by –r.
• Two dimensional lattice types
There are five types of lattice types in two dimensions
• Three dimensional lattice types: there are 14 types of
three dimensional lattice types
 Continued…
The cubic lattices: simple cubic, body center cubic and face centered
cubic

BCC and FCC and their axial lengths: the position of a point on a cell is
specified in terms of atomic coordinates X, Y, Z. Thus the
coordinates of a body center are ½ ½ ½ , and the face centered
includes ½ ½ 0,0 ½ ½, ½ 0 ½
1.4 Index system for a crystal planes
 Continued…
• The indices (hkl) may denote a single plane or set of parallel planes. If a
plane cutes an axis on the negative side of the origin, the corresponding
index is negative, indicated by placing minus sign above the index:
 1.5 Classification of crystals
• There are 7 different crystal systems but 14 Bravaise lattices
Continued…
Continued…
Continued…
 Simple crystal structures
• Sodium chloride structure (NaCl)
 The lattice is face-centered cubic; the basis consists of one Na atom and
one Cl atom separated by one half the body diagonal of a cube. There are
four units of NaCl in each unit cube, with one atom in the positions

 Each atom has as nearest neighbors six atom of the opposite kind.
• Cesium chloride structure (CsCl)
 There is one molecule per primitive cell with atoms at the corners 000 and
body-centered position ½ ½ ½ of the simple cubic lattice. Each atom may be
viewed as at the center of a cube atoms of the opposite kind so that the
number of nearest neighbors or coordinate number is eight
 • Hexagonal close-packed
 The fraction of the total volume occupied by the spheres is 0.74 for fcc and
hcp. No structure, regular or not, has denser packing.
 The hcp structure has the primitive cell of the hexagonal lattice, but with a
basis of two atoms.
 The number of nearest neighbor atoms is 12 for hcp
 • Diamond structure
 The space lattice of diamond is fcc. The primitive basis has two identical
atoms 000; ¼¼¼ associated with each point of the fcc lattice.
 Thus the conventional unit cube contains eight atoms.
 Each atom has 4 nearest neighbors and 12 next nearest neighbors.
 The diamond structure is relatively empty; the maximum portion of the
available volume may be filled by hard spheres is only 0.34.
 • Cubic zinc sulfide structure
 The diamond structure may be viewed as two fcc structures displaced from
each other by one quarter of a body diagonal.
 The Cubic zinc sulfide structure results when the Zn atoms are placed on
one fcc lattice and S atoms on the other fcc as shown in the figure.

Examples of cubic zinc sulfide symmetry

 Exercises
1.The angles between the tetrahedral bonds of diamond are the same as the
angles body diagonals of a cube. Use elementary vector analysis to find the
value of the angle.
2. Consider the planes with indices (100) and (001);, and the indices refer to the
conventional cubic cell. What are the indices of these planes when referred
to the primitive axes of fcc lattice shown figure below.

3. Show that the c/a ration for an ideal hexagonal close-packed structure is
(8/3)1/2=1.633. If c/a is significantly larger than this value, the crystal
structure may be thought of as composed of planes of closely packed atoms,
the planes being loosely stacked.