PH 495/595, Materials Physics: Structure
and physical Properties of ordered and disordered Condensed Matter
Last updated: March 25, 2020
KLM building # 245, Mo/We 10:00 to 11:50 am
Lecturer: Peter Moeck, Dr. rer. nat. (Crystallography), PhD
Professor of Physics
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 12:00-12:30 pm and by appointment
Office Location: SRTC, room 404, pmoeck at pdx.edu
Tel. 503 725 4227, but I do prefer to communicate with my students per e-mail or in person
Access and
Inclusion for Students with Disabilities PSU values diversity and inclusion; we
are committed to fostering mutual respect and full participation for all
students. My goal is to create a learning environment that is equitable,
useable, inclusive, and welcoming. If any aspects of instruction or course
design result in barriers to your inclusion or learning, please notify me. The
Disability Resource Center (DRC) provides reasonable accommodations for
students who encounter barriers in the learning environment. If you have, or
think you may have, a disability that may affect your work in this class and
feel you need accommodations, contact the
If you already have accommodations, please contact me to make sure that I have
received a faculty notification letter and discuss your accommodations.
Students who need accommodations for tests and quizzes are expected to schedule
their tests to overlap with the time the class is taking the test.
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Course
description and syllabus, liable
to change as some function of the student interests in the course.
This course provides a thorough introduction to the very wide and diverse field of Materials Physics. Modern geometric-structural crystallography is at the core of this field because it allows for the derivation of the physical properties of condensed matter.
Point and space symmetries of crystals are first introduced in 2D and applied to data types that are used in electron crystallography. Fourier analyses and syntheses (as well as reciprocal space) are also first introduced in 2D and then generalized up to six spatial dimensions with special emphasis of the 3D case. This is followed by the discussion of point and space symmetries in 3D and a brief discussion of their utility in single crystal X-ray crystallography and discrete electron tomography.
The laboratory component of this course is concerned with quantitative powder X-ray diffraction. All student will receive a different powder mixture of some unknown crystal phases (but qualitatively know element content) and need to quantify its phase content by a Rietveld analysis. (A fee of $75 per student needs to be charged for this part of the course as the source of the X-rays wears down over time and needs to be replaced after a couple of years at a cost of about $3k.)
A few structural prototypes are covered and their Bärnighausen trees derived on the basis of the International Tables for Crystallography Vols. A and A1.
Neumann's and Curie's
symmetry principles provide the bridge from crystal structures to the physical
properties of materials. Tensors will be utilized as most effective
mathematical representation of the anisotropy of physics properties.
Following developments of the last two decades, crystallographic symmetries are treated as continuous features in order to gain deeper insight into structure property relationships.
Prerequisites/co-requisites
Physics 211 - 213, 221 - 223, 311, 312, 322, and their prerequisites; Mathematics 251–253: Calculus I-III, 256: Differential equations and multivariate calculus, 261: Linear Algebra and their prerequisites
Course objectives - Provide the basis for a firm understanding on how atomic arrangements and chemical bond types determine the physical properties of condensed matter. Go way beyond classical geometric structural crystallography by including crystal defects, textures, pseudo-symmetry, symmetries as continuous features, modulated structures, and quasicrystals. Teach students how to perform quantitative powder X-ray diffractometry.
Student learning outcomes – (1) Students will gain a firm understanding on how atomic arrangements and chemical bond types determine the physical properties of condensed matter. (2) Students will also get to know core concepts of modern geometric structural crystallography and will be able to apply them correctly; (3) Students will be able to perform quantitative powder X-ray diffractometry hands on.
Outline of course content –
Week 1 – Causes and manifestations of crystalline order, types of chemical bonds and derived
properties, a few structural prototypes for different types of materials
Week 2 – Bravais lattices, metric tensor, coordinate transformations, crystallographic calculations
Week 3 – point and space group symmetries in 2D and 3D including sub-periodic layer and rod groups
as well as color symmetries,
Week 4 – International Tables of Crystallography, open access crystallographic databases,
Bärnighausen trees of a few structural prototypes
Week 5 – kinematic diffraction and imaging theory - Fourier transforms & reciprocal space,
crystallographic image processing, electron diffraction patterns, structure factors as properties
of crystals
Week 6 – Quantitative powder X-ray diffraction: diffraction theory (Fourier transforms) and praxis,
Rietveld refinement and crystallographic databases
Week 7 – Neumann's and Curie's symmetry principles, Symmetries as continuous features
Week 8 – Tensors: capturing the essence of anisotropy of physical properties, the open access Materials
Property Database
Week 9 –
order in the 4th and 5th spatial dimension)
Week 10 – Quasicrystals and general grain boundaries (long range order in the 6th spatial dimension)
Course requirements and method of evaluation –
Attendance 10%
Homeworks and Assignments 30%
Final take home exam 60%
there will be different homeworks, assignments, and take home exams for undergraduates and graduate students.
The method of evaluation is the same for both undergraduate and graduate students, but the quality and quantity of the homeworks, assignments, and take home exams differ significantly. Graduate students have to demonstrate their understanding of the course material at a significantly deeper level than undergraduate students. More specifically, graduate students have to demonstrate that they are able to apply the course material creatively, i.e. are capable of doing their own research.
Out of 100% of totally achievable points, students will receive a letter grade or P/NP based upon a curve where the minimum grades will be:
A: 96-100%
A-: 91-95%
B+: 86-90%
B: 81-85%
B-: 76-80%
C+: 71-75%
C: 66-70%
C-: 61-65%
D+: 56-60%
D: 51-55%
D-: 46-50%
F: < 46%
Passing will be for points over 50%
General teaching philosophy: “If you want to build a ship, don't
drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but
rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
suggested reading list, bits and pieces from these
books will become part of the power point slides for the course, there is no single
textbook that contains all of the context above at the right level (for both
undergraduates and graduates) and total coverage
R. E. Newnham, properties of materials, anisotropy,
symmetry, structure, Oxford University Press. 2005, (paperback, about $ 60)
M. De Graef, M. E. McHenry, Structure of Materials, An
introduction to crystallography, diffraction and symmetry, 2nd edition,
Cambridge University Press, 2012
D. R. Lovett, Tensor Properties of Crystals, IoP Publishing
1999
E. Zolotoyabko, Basic Concepts of Crystallography,
Wiley-VCH, paperback
R. Glaser, Symmetry, Spectroscopy, and Crystallography: The
Structural Nexus, Wiley-VHC, 2015 (free download of first chapter:
http://www.wiley-vch.de/books/sample/3527337490_c01.pdf)
M. M. Julian, Foundations of Crystallography with Computer
Applications, CRC press, 2008
P. G. Radaelli, Symmetry in Crystallography, Understanding
the International Tables, IUCr texts on Crystallography 17,
S. M. Allen, E. L. Thomas, The structure of materials, Wiley
1998
K. Hermann, Crystallography and Surface Structure,
Wiley-VHC, 2011
D. Schwarzenbach, Crystallography, Wiley and Sons, 1993
L. S. D. Glaser, Crystallography and its applications, van
Nostrand, Reinhold Company Limited, 1977
K.-W. Benz and W. Neumann, Introduction to Crystal Growth and
Characterization, Wiley-VHC, 2014, paperback
U. Müller, Symmetry Relations between
Y. Waseda, E. Matsubara, K. Shinoda, X-ray diffraction
crystallography, Introduction, Examples and Solved Problems, Springer, 2011
X. Zou, S. Hovmoeller, P. Oleynikov, Electron
Crystallography, Electron Microscopy and Electron Diffraction, Oxford
University Press, IUCr Texts on Crystallography 16, 2011
When there are less than 5 students in this class, the
traditional lecture format will be changed to an “open discussion” format based
on homework reading assignments and associated solved materials physics
problems. In that case, we will concentrate on these three books, all available
at the library
https://books.google.com/books/about/Tensor_Properties_of_Crystals_Second_Edi.html?id=WfJujwEACAAJ
https://www.amazon.de/Foundations-Crystallography-Computer-Applications-Maureen/dp/1420060759
https://www.springer.com/de/book/9780387740737
Grading will then be
based to 60% on the take home final (about solving real world materials physics
problems) and 40% on the basis of active participation in the open discussions.