Solid State Physics Midterm - 2012,

March 12 14:30 to 17:20

This is a closed book exam. You may use a hand-written formula sheet. Any four out of the five problems will be counted as a full paper. The problems have equal weight. (1) The crystal structure of Cu3Au. Name: Copper Gold Name: Auricupride, syn Au Cu3 REF: Cannon, J., Humphreys, Brigham Young Univ.,Provo, UT, USA., ICDD Grant-in-Aid,(1983). Sample was prepared by arc-melting the pure elements in a Zrgettered Ar atmosphere. There was a 0.04% weight loss during arc-melting. Powder was annealed for 24 days at 350 C. Radiation: CuKa1 Wave Length: 1.54060 A. Entry q(1/A) 2Theta Int 1 1.675 23.719 17 2 2.370 33.807 11 3 2.902 41.714 100 4 3.352 48.561 41 5 3.747 54.744 6 6 4.105 60.479 4 7 4.740 71.112 21 8 5.027 76.167 3 Above the diffraction peaks observed below 77 degrees are listed. Hint: the alloy is ordered Cu3Au (low temperature annealing for a long time). (a) Decide whether the structure is s.c., b.c.c. or f.c.c., and thus determine the Miller indices h, k, l for the peaks. (b) Determine the lattice constant based on the last peak. (c) What is the density of this intermetallic compound? The atomic mass is 63.54 g/mol for Cu, 196.9 for Au, and Avogadro's number is N A! 6.02"10 23 mol#1 . Sliding atoms. Assume a bcc (body centered cubic) structure, with one atom per lattice point The lattice constant is a. The atomic form factor is some function f !q " . ! r & ! ! "#$ f j ! G " e %i G (a) Calculate the structure factor F ! G for the lattice, and j show that the selection rule for the peaks is h 'k ' l # 2 n with n () . ! (b) Now the atoms at the centres of the cubic unic cells are displaced by ! a z from their original positions, where ! ! 1 . In other words, they are displaced a small fraction of the lattice spacing in the vertical direction. Find again the ! "# F ! G ! "* F ! G ! " of the structure factor, and calculate the intensities I ! G (001), (100) and (002) peaks. Keep only the first nonzero term in an ! expansion of I for these three peaks (expand to leading order in ! '). (c) What is the selection rule if ! !1 " 2 ? No expansion here, of course.
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Stability limit for bcc electron phases. (a) For a bcc lattice in real space, what is the shortest distance from the origin of reciprocal space, ! , to the surface of the first Brillouin zone? (b) At what fractional valance (electrons/atom) = (e/a) would the Fermi sphere touch the surface of the first Brillouin zone? (c) Why is the bcc phase expected to become unstable near that (e/a) value? Free electron band structure for an fcc material. The diagram below shows free electron energies for an fcc lattice, given by the & %2 (A). The lattice constant is a. All energies are equation E !"# 2 $ 2m %" & k 'G scaled to the energy at the point X. & and k!X that point to the points ! ans X in (a) What are the vectors k ( reciprocal space? (b) What is the energy at the point X? (c) Consider the band that is marked by the arrow. It is four-fold degenerate (four ! that, inserted dots on the line). What are the four reciprocal lattice vectors G 2 2 & % , give rise to this band? into E !"# $ 2m %" & k 'G

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The band gap in gold at the [111] surface of the first Brillouin zone. The two diagrams are different representations of the band structure of gold, both based on the same calculation. (S. Kupratakuln and G.C. Fletcher, 1969). The structure of gold is fcc, with a lattice constant of 0.40786 nm. (a) Read the band gap, 2 U , at the point L from the first diagram (where it straddles the Fermi energy). Convert the answer to electron volt (1 Ry = 13.61 eV). Use a ruler for precision.

(b) The solid lines in the diagram below show the Fermi surface. Find the kinetic energies at the points marked by a and b, in eV (with the help of a ruler). !31 !" 1.054#10$34 Js , me !9.11 !10 kg , 1 eV !1.60 !10!19 J . (c) What can you say about the potential energy at each of these two points? (d) From this argument, determine the energy U and compare it with the result in part (a).