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Electron Heat Capacity
In solid state physics the electronic specific heat, sometimes called the electron heat capacity, is the specific heat of an electron gas. Heat is transported by phonons and by free electrons in solids. For pure metals, however, the electronic contributions dominate in the thermal conductivity. In impure metals, the electron mean free path is reduced by collisions with impurities, and the phonon contribution may be comparable with the electronic contribution. Introduction Although the Drude model was fairly successful in describing the electron motion within metals, it has some erroneous aspects: it predicts the Hall coefficient with the wrong sign compared to experimental measurements, the assumed additional electronic heat capacity to the lattice heat capacity, namely \tfrac k_ per electron at elevated temperatures, is also inconsistent with experimental values, since measurements of metals show no deviation from the Dulong–Petit law. The observed electronic contributio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solid State Physics
Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state physics studies how the large-scale properties of solid materials result from their atomic-scale properties. Thus, solid-state physics forms a theoretical basis of materials science. It also has direct applications, for example in the technology of transistors and semiconductors. Background Solid materials are formed from densely packed atoms, which interact intensely. These interactions produce the mechanical (e.g. hardness and elasticity), thermal, electrical, magnetic and optical properties of solids. Depending on the material involved and the conditions in which it was formed, the atoms may be arranged in a regular, geometric pattern ( crystalline solids, which include metals and ordinary water ice) or irregularly (an amorphous solid such as common ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fermi Level
The Fermi level of a solid-state body is the thermodynamic work required to add one electron to the body. It is a thermodynamic quantity usually denoted by ''µ'' or ''E''F for brevity. The Fermi level does not include the work required to remove the electron from wherever it came from. A precise understanding of the Fermi level—how it relates to electronic band structure in determining electronic properties, how it relates to the voltage and flow of charge in an electronic circuit—is essential to an understanding of solid-state physics. In band structure theory, used in solid state physics to analyze the energy levels in a solid, the Fermi level can be considered to be a hypothetical energy level of an electron, such that at thermodynamic equilibrium this energy level would have a ''50% probability of being occupied at any given time''. The position of the Fermi level in relation to the band energy levels is a crucial factor in determining electrical properties. The Fermi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alkali Metal
The alkali metals consist of the chemical elements lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K),The symbols Na and K for sodium and potassium are derived from their Latin names, ''natrium'' and ''kalium''; these are still the origins of the names for the elements in some languages, such as German and Russian. rubidium (Rb), caesium (Cs), and francium (Fr). Together with hydrogen they constitute group 1, which lies in the s-block of the periodic table. All alkali metals have their outermost electron in an s-orbital: this shared electron configuration results in their having very similar characteristic properties. Indeed, the alkali metals provide the best example of group trends in properties in the periodic table, with elements exhibiting well-characterised homologous behaviour. This family of elements is also known as the lithium family after its leading element. The alkali metals are all shiny, soft, highly reactive metals at standard temperature and pressure and readil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transition Metals
In chemistry, a transition metal (or transition element) is a chemical element in the d-block of the periodic table (groups 3 to 12), though the elements of group 12 (and less often group 3) are sometimes excluded. They are the elements that can use d orbitals as Valence electron#Valence_shell, valence orbitals to form chemical bonds. The lanthanide and actinide elements (the f-block) are called inner transition metals and are sometimes considered to be transition metals as well. Since they are metals, they are lustrous and have good electrical and thermal conductivity. Most (with the exception of Group 11 element, group 11 and Group 12 element, group 12) are hard and strong, and have high melting and boiling temperatures. They form compounds in any of two or more different oxidation states and bind to a variety of ligands to form coordination complexes that are often coloured. They form many useful alloys and are often employed as catalysts in elemental form or in compounds such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D-shells
In chemistry and atomic physics, an electron shell may be thought of as an orbit followed by electrons around an atom's nucleus. The closest shell to the nucleus is called the "1 shell" (also called the "K shell"), followed by the "2 shell" (or "L shell"), then the "3 shell" (or "M shell"), and so on farther and farther from the nucleus. The shells correspond to the principal quantum numbers (''n'' = 1, 2, 3, 4 ...) or are labeled alphabetically with the letters used in X-ray notation (K, L, M, ...). A useful guide when understanding electron shells in atoms is to note that each row on the conventional periodic table of elements represents an electron shell. Each shell can contain only a fixed number of electrons: the first shell can hold up to two electrons, the second shell can hold up to eight (2 + 6) electrons, the third shell can hold up to 18 (2 + 6 + 10) and so on. The general formula is that the ''n''th shell can in principle hold up to 2( ''n''2) electrons.< ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Effective Mass (solid-state Physics)
In solid state physics, a particle's effective mass (often denoted m^*) is the mass that it ''seems'' to have when responding to forces, or the mass that it seems to have when interacting with other identical particles in a thermal distribution. One of the results from the band theory of solids is that the movement of particles in a periodic potential, over long distances larger than the lattice spacing, can be very different from their motion in a vacuum. The effective mass is a quantity that is used to simplify band structures by modeling the behavior of a free particle with that mass. For some purposes and some materials, the effective mass can be considered to be a simple constant of a material. In general, however, the value of effective mass depends on the purpose for which it is used, and can vary depending on a number of factors. For electrons or electron holes in a solid, the effective mass is usually stated as a factor multiplying the rest mass of an electron, ''m'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Debye Temperature
In thermodynamics and solid-state physics, the Debye model is a method developed by Peter Debye in 1912 for estimating the phonon contribution to the specific heat (Heat capacity) in a solid. It treats the vibrations of the atomic lattice (heat) as phonons in a box, in contrast to the Einstein photoelectron model, which treats the solid as many individual, non-interacting quantum harmonic oscillators. The Debye model correctly predicts the low-temperature dependence of the heat capacity of solids, which is proportional to T^3 – the Debye ''T'' 3 law. Just like the Einstein photoelectron model, it also recovers the Dulong–Petit law at high temperatures. But due to simplifying assumptions, its accuracy suffers at intermediate temperatures. Derivation The Debye model is a solid-state equivalent of Planck's law of black body photon radiation, where one treats electromagnetic photonic radiation as a photon gas. The Debye model treats atomic vibrations as phonons in a box ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fermi Energy
The Fermi energy is a concept in quantum mechanics usually referring to the energy difference between the highest and lowest occupied single-particle states in a quantum system of non-interacting fermions at absolute zero temperature. In a Fermi gas, the lowest occupied state is taken to have zero kinetic energy, whereas in a metal, the lowest occupied state is typically taken to mean the bottom of the conduction band. The term "Fermi energy" is often used to refer to a different yet closely related concept, the Fermi ''level'' (also called electrochemical potential).The use of the term "Fermi energy" as synonymous with Fermi level (a.k.a. electrochemical potential) is widespread in semiconductor physics. For example:''Electronics (fundamentals And Applications)''by D. Chattopadhyay''Semiconductor Physics and Applications''by Balkanski and Wallis. There are a few key differences between the Fermi level and Fermi energy, at least as they are used in this article: * The Fermi energ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sommerfeld Expansion
A Sommerfeld expansion is an approximation method developed by Arnold Sommerfeld for a certain class of integrals which are common in condensed matter and statistical physics. Physically, the integrals represent statistical averages using the Fermi–Dirac distribution. When the inverse temperature \beta is a large quantity, the integral can be expanded in terms of \beta as :\int_^\infty \frac\,\mathrm\varepsilon = \int_^\mu H(\varepsilon)\,\mathrm\varepsilon + \frac\left(\frac\right)^2H^\prime(\mu) + O \left(\frac\right)^4 where H^\prime(\mu) is used to denote the derivative of H(\varepsilon) evaluated at \varepsilon = \mu and where the O(x^n) notation refers to limiting behavior of order x^n. The expansion is only valid if H(\varepsilon) vanishes as \varepsilon \rightarrow -\infty and goes no faster than polynomially in \varepsilon as \varepsilon \rightarrow \infty. If the integral is from zero to infinity, then the integral in the first term of the expansion is from zero ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fermi Temperature
The Fermi energy is a concept in quantum mechanics usually referring to the energy difference between the highest and lowest occupied single-particle states in a quantum system of non-interacting fermions at absolute zero temperature. In a Fermi gas, the lowest occupied state is taken to have zero kinetic energy, whereas in a metal, the lowest occupied state is typically taken to mean the bottom of the conduction band. The term "Fermi energy" is often used to refer to a different yet closely related concept, the Fermi ''level'' (also called electrochemical potential).The use of the term "Fermi energy" as synonymous with Fermi level (a.k.a. electrochemical potential) is widespread in semiconductor physics. For example:''Electronics (fundamentals And Applications)''by D. Chattopadhyay''Semiconductor Physics and Applications''by Balkanski and Wallis. There are a few key differences between the Fermi level and Fermi energy, at least as they are used in this article: * The Fermi energy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Particle
In physics, a free particle is a particle that, in some sense, is not bound by an external force, or equivalently not in a region where its potential energy varies. In classical physics, this means the particle is present in a "field-free" space. In quantum mechanics, it means the particle is in a region of uniform potential, usually set to zero in the region of interest since the potential can be arbitrarily set to zero at any point in space. Classical free particle The classical free particle is characterized by a fixed velocity v. The momentum is given by \mathbf=m\mathbf and the kinetic energy (equal to total energy) by E=\fracmv^2=\frac where ''m'' is the mass of the particle and v is the vector velocity of the particle. Quantum free particle Mathematical description A free particle with mass m in non-relativistic quantum mechanics is described by the free Schrödinger equation: - \frac \nabla^2 \ \psi(\mathbf, t) = i\hbar\frac \psi (\mathbf, t) where ''ψ'' is the wav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internal Energy
The internal energy of a thermodynamic system is the total energy contained within it. It is the energy necessary to create or prepare the system in its given internal state, and includes the contributions of potential energy and internal kinetic energy. It keeps account of the gains and losses of energy of the system that are due to changes in its internal state. It does not include the kinetic energy of motion of the system as a whole, or any external energies from surrounding force fields. The internal energy of an isolated system is constant, which is expressed as the law of conservation of energy, a foundation of the first law of thermodynamics. The internal energy is an extensive property. The internal energy cannot be measured directly and knowledge of all its components is rarely interesting, such as the static rest mass energy of its constituent matter. Thermodynamics is chiefly concerned only with ''changes'' in the internal energy, not with its absolute value. Inste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
