THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF ZANZIBAR

SCHOOL OF NATURAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL SCIENCES

THIRD YEAR FIRST SEMESTER EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE WITH EDUCATION – 2020/2021

PH 3102: SOLID STATE PHYSICS

DATE: Wednesday, 17th March, 2021 TIME: 02:00 PM – 05:00 PM

INSTRUCTIONS
1. This paper consists of NINE (09) questions.
2. Answer ALL questions in Section A and any THREE questions from Section B.
3. Write your Examination number on your answer booklet(s).
4. Cellular phones are NOT allowed in the examination room.
5. All necessary working MUST be CLEARLY shown.
6. The following information may be used if necessary:

Planck’s constant,
Mass of an electron,
Charge of an electron,
Avogadro’s number,

Boltzmann constant,
Density of aluminium, = 2700 kg/m3
Atomic weight of aluminium, kg
Fermi energy of copper, Fe = 7 eV
Debye temperature of copper, TD = 348 K.

This paper consists of FOUR (4) printed pages

1
 SECTION A (24 Marks)

Answer ALL questions in this section

QUESTION ONE

a) Define the following terms used in crystalography:

(i) Lattice. (01 Mark)

(ii) Primitive cell. (01 Mark)

(iii) Unit cell. (01 Mark)

(iv) Coordination number. (01 Mark)

(v) Atomic packing factor. (01 Mark)

(vi) Miller indices. (01 Mark)

QUESTION TWO

a) Give any three assumptions of clasical theory of lattice specific heat. (03 Marks)

b) Show that the classical value of electronic molar heat capacity of all metals is

approximately 12.5 kJ/kmol/K. (03 Marks)

QUESTION THREE

a) The unit cell of aluminium is face centred cubic (fcc) with lattice constant 0.405 nm

and mass 0.0085 kg. How many atoms are in each unit cell? (03 Marks)

b) Show that the packing factor for fcc lattice structure is . (03 Marks)

2
QUESTION FOUR

a) Mention three reasons for the formation of a parmanet magnetic moments. (03 Marks)

b) Derive the relationship between relative permiability and magnetic susceptibility of a

magnet material. (03 Marks)

SECTION B (36 MARKS)

Answer ANY THREE questions in this section

QUESTION FIVE

a) Make the necessary correction for Bragg’s equation for X-rays. (06 Marks)

b) Verify that the hexagonal close packed stracture (hcp) lattice forms a close-packed

structure when (ratio of an ideal hcp) where “c” is the height of the unit cell

and “a” is its edge. (06 Marks)

QUESTION SIX

a) Derive the classical expression for calculating Lorentz number. (05 Marks)

b) Electrical resistivities of copper and nickel at room temperature are and

Ωm respectively. If wave mechanical treatmnt of Wiedemann-Franz law

applies to these materials, Find the electronic contribution to the thermal conductivities of

these materials. (07

Marks)

QUESTION SEVEN

3
 a) What would be the effect of the specific heat of solids at room temperature if Planck’s

constant were increased tenfold? (06 Marks)

b) The Debye’s temperature of carbon (diamond structure) is 1850 K. Calculate the

specific heat per kmol for diamond at 20 K. Also compute the highest lattice

frequency involved in the Debye’s theory. (06 Marks)

QUESTION EIGHT

Copper has a density of and an electrical conductivity at

room temperature. Calculate:

a) The mean free time. (03 Marks)

b) The Fermi energy. (03 Marks)

c) The Fermi velocity. (03 Marks)

d) The mean free path at the Fermi level. (03 Marks)

QUESTION NINE

a) Sketch part of a simple cubic lattice and indicate on it the (1 0 0) and (1 1 1) planes.

For such a lattice of spherical atoms, radius 0.16 nm, calculate the areal density

(atoms/m2) on each of these planes. (06 Marks)

b) The relaxation time of a conduction electron in copper is . An electric

field of 2.5 V/cm is applied along the negative x-axis. Calculate the increase in x-

component of the velocity between two collisions. What is the average increase in

energy of the electrons between two collisions? (06 Marks)