This course provides the scientific foundation for interdisciplinary graduate study in materials and nanotechnology. It is structured around an equal and broad treatment of soft (colloids, fluids, polymers and biology) and hard (crystals, metals, semiconductors and magnetism) materials, with a specific emphasis on the soft-hard interface. The objective of the course is to develop the quantitative methods that are critical to a working knowledge of materials and nanotechnology. It assumes an understanding of classical calculus-based physics at the level of Physics 251-253, and then develops the necessary formalisms of statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, continuum mechanics, condensed matter physics and chemical engineering within the context of materials and nanotechnology. Emphasis is placed on formulating a quantitative description of material properties that is directly relevant to measurement and applications.
This graduate course investigates the synthesis and processing of alloys, blends, composites, oxides, and semiconductor materials, as well as inorganic and organic polymers and nanoparticles. The goal of the class is to become familiar with the general preparation and manipulation of these materials while developing a basic understanding of their chemistry and processing. The course is designed to expose students from varied backgrounds to the synthetic methods that are critical to a working knowledge of materials and nanotechnology. It assumes an understanding of college chemistry through the level of organic chemistry.
This represents the canonical graduate level physics course in electricity and magnetism. The emphasis is on a theoretical description of the statics and dynamics of electromagnetic fields. As taught by this instructor, the course naturally splits into three chronological themes; electrostatics, electrodynamics, and particles/fields. The material will be presented with an emphasis on materials and nanotechnology. The mathematical tools (most notably Green’s functions) required for a quantitative treatment of electrodynamics will be developed.
This course draws on the tools acquired in an undergraduate and graduate physics career - classical mechanics, E&M, statistical mechanics, and quantum mechanics – and uses these to solve practical and challenging problems related to the physics of ‘hard’ materials. The use of quantum theory to formulate a modern, quantitative description of the solid state is paramount, and the use of quantum-field theoretic techniques will be introduced.
The course uses the Dirac formalism to develop a quantum description of measurements and wave/matrix mechanics, with an emphasis on dynamics and symmetry. Feynman path integrals are also introduced, and the conventional static/dynamic approximation schemes are derived and applied to practical problems such as the scattering, absorption and emission of light by particles.
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