Customer Reviews

Solid State Physics

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The theory is presented good enough and basic principles are clear. Appendix on the end of each chapter are helpful in understanding what is really going on in physics view. However,
it is confusing for some very simple calculation errors here or there. And units being used when writing the book are obscure,especially in the magnetism part. Good book for reference but not the best for learning.

This book has been used as a major textbook of one year graduate course "Theory of Solids" at MIT. At first glance, I feel it more or less boring, compared with Mahan's book "Condensed Matter in a Nutshell", but after I went through the entire book carefully during the past year, I really learnt a lot.

This book is quite clear and pedagogical. For instance, it uses 1D periodic potential to illustrate the formation of band. This will gain you an intuitive understanding of band without much calculation.

I think this book is highlighted in 3 topics: 1)one electron approximation and related band theory 2) optical properties, that how to calculate experimental measurable quantities such as dielectric constant from wave function or 1st principle; 3) magnetism. After carefully reading, this book is much more interesting than it first appears, it always compares experiment to the theory, even semi-quantitatively, and the figures are clear and directly related to the hear of content.

There are also some deficiency in this book. 1) 2nd quantization is seldom used until Kondo problem in Chp16, instead it uses wave function much more. 2) Superconductivity is well written but far from self-contained, I won't blame this since we may need additional book particularly for superconductivity 3) It talks about optical properties and scattering theory, thus I believe it should also give a formal treatment to linear response theory. 4) Disordered system have not covered completely, actually after reviewing this book, we will move forward from quantum mechanics to 1960s. 5) No problems at all. Whatever, one book is far from enough, so we can turn to many other sources.

In sum, this is a really well written book, and worthwhile to study carefully. It provides me a solid understanding in traditional solid state physics.

In this book, I found the largely expected update of the classic Ashcroft & Mermin's book of 1976. Every solid state theorist should use both.

I have found this book very very nice. It is a book devoted to the explanation of Solid State Physics. The languague is clear and essential but, in the same time, complete. The main physical idea are outlined in an very impressive way. It is interesting that each chapter is self-consistent so you can use it as text-book on the subject or for some specific topic related to your research interest. It's surely the best book on Solid State Physics that I have never read.