Table of Contents

Foreword.Preface.1. The Mesoscale.1.1 Interfaces in Polycrystals.1.2 Solidified Metals and Alloys.1.3 Ceramic Powder Aggregates.1.4 Thin-Film Microstructure.2. Crystal Structure and Bonding.2.1 Structure Description Methods.2.2 Cohesive Forces in Solids.2.3 Structural Energetics.2.4 Common Structure Types.2.5 Structural Disturbances.2.6 Structural Control and Synthetic Strategies.3. The Electronic Level, I: An Overview of Band Theory.3.1 The Many-Body Schro dinger Equation.3.2 Bloch's Theorem.3.3 Reciprocal Space.3.4 A Choice of Basis Sets.3.5 Understanding Band-Structure Diagrams.3.6 Breakdown of the Independent Electron Approximation.3.7 Density Functional Theory: An Alternative to the Hartree-Fock Approach.4. The Electronic Structure, II: The Tight-Binding Approximation.4.1 The General LCAO Method.4.2 Extension of the LCAO Method to Crystalline Solids.4.3 Orbital Interactions in Monatomic Solids.4.4 Tight-Binding Assumptions.4.5 Qualitative LCAO Band Structures.4.6 Total Energy Tight-Binding Calculations.5. Transport Properties.5.1 An Introduction to Tensors.5.2 Thermal Conductivity.5.3 Electronic Conductivity.5.4 Atomic Transport.6. Metal-Nonmetal Transitions.6.1 Correlated Systems.6.2 Anderson Localization.6.3 Experimentally Distinguishing Electron Correlation from Disorder.6.4 Tuning the Metal-Nonmetal Transition.6.5 Other Types of Electronic Transitions.7. Magnetic and Dielectric Properties.7.1 Macroscopic Magnetic Behavior.7.2 Atomic Origin of Paramagnetism.7.3 Spontaneous Magnetic Ordering.7.4 Magnetotransport Properties.7.5 Magnetostriction.7.6 Dielectric Properties.8. Optical Properties of Materials.8.1 Maxwell's Equations.8.2 Refractive Index.8.3 Absorption.8.4 Nonlinear Effects.8.5 Summary.9. Mechanical Properties.9.1 Basic Definitions.9.2 Elasticity.9.3 Plasticity.9.4 Fracture.10. Phase Equilibria, Phase Diagrams, and Phase Modeling.10.1 Thermodynamic Systems, Phases, and Components.10.2 The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.10.3 Understanding Phase Diagrams.10.4 Experimental Phase-Diagram Determinations.10.5 Phase-Diagram Modeling.11. An Introduction to Nanomaterials.11.1 History of Nanotechnology.11.2 Properties of Matter at the Nanoscale.12. Synthetic Strategies.12.1 Synthetic Strategies.12.2 Summary.Index.

About the Author

JOHN N. LALENA, PhD, is a private consultant. He was formerly a senior research scientist for Honeywell Electronic Materials, and a semiconductor fabrication process/product engineer for Texas Instruments. He also has served as a visiting professor of chemistry at Gonzaga University. DAVID A. CLEARY, PhD, is Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Department of Chemistry at Gonzaga University. His courses have included physical chemistry and solid-state chemistry. His research interests range from nonlinear optical materials to chemical sensors and ionic conductors.

Reviews

"...very insightful and would serve as a text for graduate students in physics, chemistry, or materials sciences. Researchers in these fields would benefit by owning this book." (Materials and Manufacturing Processes, February 2006) "...an excellent resource for libraries supporting programs in chemistry, materials science, and solid-state science. It can also be an effective resource for senior undergraduate and gradate course work." (CHOICE, October 2005)