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Intro CondensedMatterPhysics
Intro CondensedMatterPhysics
Condensed Matter
Physics
---- A Historical Perspective
´ B. S. (2005)
´ Ph. D. (2010)
´ Postdoc (2010-2015)
by Viktor Vasnetsov
Stones are “brittle”: hard but
easy to break
Contrary to brittleness is
ductility: a ductile material
can be plastically deformed
without fracture
Nobel Prize in
Physics 1909
During the second industrial
revolution, progresses are
mostly made by harnessing
the electrical (and magnetic)
properties of solids.
The Information Age
In modern times,
technological advances rely
more and more on properties
of condensed matter which
can only be understood by
quantum mechanics.
The Group 14 (Group IV) elements: similar
chemically, but different physically
Carbon, 6C
Silicon, 14Si
Germanium, 32Ge
Tin, 50Sn
Lead, 82Pb
A superconductor can levitate a
magnet, or ...
Nobel Prize in
Physics 2010
The international prototype of the
kilogram, ”Le Grand K”
With an electron microscope, we can
actually see viruses injecting their DNA into
a bacterium.
Topological quantum computing:
computing by “braiding”
Actually, a branch of
condensed matter physics
was born in ancient China
since ca. 4000 B.C.
慈石召鐵,或引之也。
----《 呂氏春秋.精通 》
Lü Buwei
呂不韋
(292 BC – 235 BC)
“magetism”
夫人臣之侵其主也,如地形
焉,即漸以往,使人主失
端,東西易面而不自知,故
先王立司南以端朝夕。
----《 韓非子.有度篇 》
Han Fei
韓非
(c. 281 BC – 233 BC)
“compass”
(English Translation)
Unfortunately, condensed
matter physics, along with
other sciences, was not born
(and developed) in the east.
“father of chemistry”
“Why does not water admit
its bulk of every kind of gas
alike? This question I have
duly considered, and
though I am not able to
satisfy myself completely I
am nearly persuaded that
the circumstance depends
on the weight and number John Dalton
of the ultimate particles of
the several gases.”
(1766 – 1844)
Dalton’s Elements
´ Farady was an RA in
Davy’s lab in 1823.
´ Farady successfully
liquefied chlorine
´ He went on to liquefy all
known gaseous elements,
except for nitrogen,
hydrogen, and oxygen.
Michael Faraday
(1791 – 1867)
Someone: What is your greatest
discovery, Sir Davy?
Davy: Michael Faraday.
The “critical” phenomena
Thomas Andrews
(1813 – 1885)
´ For ”air”, nothing special
happens: continuity of
state.
´ For CO2: above 31
degrees, it behaves like
regular air.
´ Below 31 degrees,
“condensation” occurs
at the plateau of the
isothermal curve: some
air turns into liquid while
the volume is reduced.
´ “X”: isopycnic point at
which the liquid and gas
share equal density
´ Z: liquid
´ Y: gas
´ Tc, pc of X: “critical
temperature” and
“critical pressure”
´ how to reconcile the
idea of continuity of
state with the
discontinuous change
observed
experimentally?
´ Another physicist also
born in the nothern
Ireland, James Thomson,
studied the discontinuous
isotherm.
´ He is also the brother
of William Thomson (later
Lord Kelvin)
James Thomson
(1822-1892)
´ Thomson claims that the
gaseous and liquid parts
of a discontinuous
isotherm were
only apparently
discontinuous, and
were actually parts of
one smooth curve
shown in dotted lines in
the diagram to the right.
´ Every isotherm should be
a continuous curve.
“It is evident that the equation for such a
complete curve must be of odd degree in V, for
V increases with diminishing P at both ends of
the curve. Furthermore the equation must be of
at least the third degree in V, since a certain
pressure may correspond to more than one
volume. At lower temperatures three roots of the
equation are real, at the critical point the three
coincide, and at higher temperatures two of
them become imaginary.”
´ Dutch physicist
Johannes van der
Waals, then a student
in Leiden University,
provided the first
theoretical solution of
the problem.
´ He has been awarded
the Nobel prize in
Johannes Diderik van der Waals
Physics in 1910
“for his work on the (1837 – 1923)
equation of state for Nobel Prize in
gases and liquids” Physics 1910
´ At Leiden University on
Saturday 14 June 1873,
from 12 noon to 3 pm,
Johannes van der Waals
defended his doctoral
thesis
´ The title
“Over de Continuiteit
van den Gas en
Vloeistoftoestand (On
the Continuity of the
Gaseous and Liquid
State)” was almost
exactly the same as
Andrews’ 1869 paper.
The van der Waals equation
⇣ a ⌘
p + 2 (V b) = RT
V
´ The van der Waals
equation introduces a
and b: gas-specific
constants related to
molecular attraction
and molecular volume
´ It correctly predicts a
mostly incompressible
liquid phase, but
details in the phase
transition zone are not
completely correct.
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and Johannes van der
Waals with the helium liquefactor in Leiden (1908)
Liquefaction of Helium
´ In 1924 Wolfgang
Pauli introduced a "two-
valued quantum degree of
freedom" associated with
the electrons (later
recognized to be “spins”)
´ He has also formulated
the Pauli exclusion principle,
stating that no two electrons
can share the Wolfgang Ernst Pauli
same quantum state at the
(1900 – 1958)
same time.
Nobel Prize in
Physics 1945
Pauli Paramagnetism
´ In 1928, Swiss
physicist Felix Bloch
provided a wave
function solution to
the Schrödinger
equation with
a periodic potential,
called the Bloch wave
Felix Bloch
(1905 – 1983)
Nobel Prize in
Physics 1952
Visualization of Bloch waves
The Brillouin zones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram
Landau Levels
´ In 2D, classical electrons
follow circular cyclotron
orbits when subjected to a
magnetic field.
´ Quantum mechanically,
these orbits are quantized.
The energy levels of
these quantized orbitals
take on discrete values:
✓ ◆
En = ~!c n+
1
, !c =
qB Lev Davidovich Landau
2 mc (1908–1968)
´ These orbitals are known
Nobel Prize in
as Landau levels (1930).
Physics 1962
Understanding the integer quantum Hall
effect based on Landau levels
1982-1983: Discovery (and partial
explanation) of the fractional quantum Hall
effect
´ In 2004,
Geim and
Novoselov
obtained
“graphene”,
a two-
dimensional
crystal of
pure carbon Andre K. Geim Konstantin S. Novoselov
(1958–) (1974–)
Nobel Prize in Nobel Prize in
Physics 2010 Physics 2010
“playfulness”
What is graphene?
´ Graphene: a single
layer of carbon
atoms that are
bonded together
in a repeating
pattern of
hexagons.
Graphene: the miracle material
Observation of quantum Hall effect
in graphene
´ Kim and collaborators have
done a lot of experimental
work on graphene, including
observation of the quantum
Hall effect.
Philip Kim
(1967–)
Potential applications
´Solar cells
´Transistors
´Transparent
screens
´...
We have now completed the tour
of quantum Hall effect and
graphene.
´Power
transmission
´Maglev train
´hjgh magnetic
field
´...
By now we have gotten some feeling
about the main topics of condensed
matter physics