Flashcards: Condensed matter physics

In solid-state physics, the electron mobility characterizes how quickly an electron can move through a metal or semiconductor, when pulled by an electric field.

Interface and colloid science is an interdisciplinary intersection of branches of chemistry, physics, nanoscience and other fields dealing with colloids, heterogeneous systems consisting of a mechanical mixture of particles between 1 nm and 1000 nm dispersed in a continuous medium.

Supercooling, also known as undercooling, is the process of lowering the temperature of a liquid or a gas below its freezing point without it becoming a solid.

Electroluminescence (EL) is an optical phenomenon and electrical phenomenon in which a material emits light in response to the passage of an electric current or to a strong electric field.

A supercritical fluid (SCF) is any substance at a temperature and pressure above its critical point, where distinct liquid and gas phases do not exist.

Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in the crystalline solids (see crystal structure).

Ferromagnetism is the basic mechanism by which certain materials (such as iron) form permanent magnets, or are attracted to magnets.

("Super atom" redirects here. For clusters of atoms that seem to exhibit some of the properties of elemental atoms, see Superatom.) A Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter of a dilute gas of bosons cooled to temperatures very close to absolute zero (that is, very near 0 K or −273.15 °C).

In the physical sciences, a phase is a region of space (a thermodynamic system), throughout which all physical properties of a material are essentially uniform.

Crystal Field Theory (CFT) is a model that describes the breaking of degeneracies of electron orbital states, usually d or f orbitals, due to a static electric field produced by a surrounding charge distribution (anion neighbors).

In condensed matter physics, the Fermi surface is an abstract boundary in reciprocal space useful for predicting the thermal, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties of metals, semimetals, and doped semiconductors.

A spin glass is a disordered magnet, where the magnetic spin of the component atoms (the orientation of the north and south magnetic poles in three-dimensional space) are not aligned in a regular pattern.

A quasiperiodic crystal, or quasicrystal, is a structure that is ordered but not periodic.

Cryochemistry is the study of chemical interactions at temperatures below −150 °C (−238 °F; 123 K).

Strength of materials, also called mechanics of materials, is a subject which deals with the behavior of solid objects subject to stresses and strains.

In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of the ordered arrangement of atoms, ions or molecules in a crystalline material.

Magnetic refrigeration is a cooling technology based on the magnetocaloric effect.

Electret (formed of elektr- from "electricity" and -et from "magnet") is a dielectric material that has a quasi-permanent electric charge or dipole polarisation.

An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally immiscible (unmixable or unblendable).

A superlattice is a periodic structure of layers of two (or more) materials.

In solid-state physics, the work function (sometimes spelled workfunction) is the minimum thermodynamic work (i.e. energy) needed to remove an electron from a solid to a point in the vacuum immediately outside the solid surface.

In solid-state physics of semiconductors, a band diagram is a diagram plotting various key electron energy levels (Fermi level and nearby energy band edges) as a function of some spatial dimension, which is often denoted x.

In pure and applied mathematics, quantum mechanics and computer graphics, a tensor operator generalizes the notion of operators which are scalars and vectors.

In pure and applied mathematics, particularly quantum mechanics and computer graphics and their applications, a spherical basis is the basis used to express spherical tensors.

Leslie Lawrance Foldy (1919–2001) was a theoretical physicist, who made contributions to condensed matter physics and quantum mechanics.

Ganeshan Venkataraman is an Indian condensed matter physicist, writer and a former vice chancellor of the Sri Sathya Sai University.

In physics, screening is the damping of electric fields caused by the presence of mobile charge carriers.

Hardness is a measure of how resistant solid matter is to various kinds of permanent shape change when a compressive force is applied.

Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy.

Quasi-crystals are supramolecular aggregates exhibiting both crystalline (solid) properties as well as amorphous, liquid-like properties.

Heat transfer physics describes the kinetics of energy storage, transport, and transformation by principal energy carriers: phonons (lattice vibration waves), electrons, fluid particles, and photons.

Liquefaction is a term used in materials sciences to refer to any process which either generates a liquid from a solid or a gas, or generates a non-liquid phase which behaves in accordance with fluid dynamics.

A crystal is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions.

Bilbao Crystallographic Server is an open access website offering online crystallographic database and programs aimed at analyzing, calculating and visualizing problems of structural and mathematical crystallography, solid state physics and structural chemistry.

In physics, a state of matter is one of the distinct forms that matter takes on.

Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM) is a group of computer programs which calculate interaction of ions with matter; the core of SRIM is a program Transport of ions in matter (TRIM).

A semimetal is a material with a very small overlap between the bottom of the conduction band and the top of the valence band.

In thermodynamics, a critical point (or critical state) is the end point of a phase equilibrium curve.

The Fermi level is the total chemical potential for electrons (or electrochemical potential for electrons) and is usually denoted by µ or EF.

Paramagnetism is a form of magnetism whereby certain materials are attracted by an externally applied magnetic field, and form internal, induced magnetic fields in the direction of the applied magnetic field.

In quantum mechanics, a boson (/ˈboʊsɒn/, /ˈboʊzɒn/) is a particle that follows Bose–Einstein statistics.

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.

The Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics is an annual peer-reviewed review journal published by Annual Reviews.