Introduction to Material Sciences

Course Code: PHYS4126

Instructor: Dr. Masood Yousaf
 Historical Perspective
• Start of the Stone Age
Beginning of the Material Science –People began to make tools from stone –about
two million years ago. Natural materials: stone, wood, clay, skins, etc.

• Bronze Age
Bronze is an alloy (a metal made up of more than one element), copper + < 25% of
tin + other elements. Bronze can be hammered or cast into a variety of shapes, can
be made harder by alloying, corrode only slowly after a surface oxide film forms.

• Iron Age
The Iron Age began about 3000 years ago and continues today. Use of iron and
steel, a stronger and cheaper material changed drastically daily life of a common
person.
• Age of Advanced materials
Intelligent design of new materials.
Graphene
This is a remarkably strong material, in fact, it is about 100 times stronger than steel. In
it’s pure form, is an almost transparent sheet. It conducts heat and electricity with great
efficiency.

Self-Healing Concrete
When in contact with water, the bacteria will germinate, producing limestone as they
go, thus sealing the crack before any damage to the structure can occur

Sweating Rooftops
Much like humans sweat to shed excess heat, this rooftop material absorbs water when
it rains and only releases it when the temperature is raised to a certain point. Thus,
keeping the house cool.
 Material classifications
 Based on state (phase)
A given material can be Gas, Liquid or Solid (based on the thermodynamic
variables: P, T,…). Intermediate/coexistent states are also possible (i.e clear
identification can get blurred).

 Based on structure (arrangement of atoms/molecules/ions)

Materials can be Crystalline, Quasicrystalline or Amorphous.

Intermediate states (say between crystalline and amorphous; i.e. partly crystalline)
are also possible. Polymers are often only partly crystalline.

 Liquid Crystals are between Liquids and Crystals.

 Similarly Solid Electrolytes (also known as fast ion conductors and superionic
conductors) are also between crystals and liquids. These materials have a sublattice
which is ‘molten’ and the ions in this sublattice are highly mobile
 Based on Band Structure
Materials can be classified as Metals, Semi-metals, Semiconductors and Insulators.

 Based on Size
Nanocrystals, Nanoquasicrystals etc.
NOTE: A material can be classified in more than one ways:

From a state perspective we could have a liquid, which is a metal from the band
structure perspective
 Hg is liquid metal at room temperature.
 Or we could have a metal (band structure viewpoint), which is amorphous
(structural viewpoint)
 ZrTiCuNiBe bulk metallic glass.
 Or we could have a ferromagnetic material (from spontaneous spin alignment point
of view- a physical property), which is amorphous (e.g.) (structural viewpoint)
 amorphous Co-Au alloys are ferromagnetic.
 What determines the properties of
materials?
 Electronic interactions are responsible for most the material properties.
From an understanding perspective this can be broken down into Bonding and
Structure.

Electronic Interactions
In materials

Bonding Structure
Weak Strong
Interactions Interactions
Hydrogen bond COVALENT

IONIC
Van der Waals etc.
METALLIC
• Van der Waals Forces are the weak forces which contribute to intermolecular
bonding between molecules. Molecules inherently possess energy and their
electrons are always in motion, so transient concentrations of electrons in one
region or another lead electrically positive regions of a molecule to be attracted to
the electrons of another molecule. Similarly, negatively-charged regions of one
molecule are repelled by negatively-charged regions of another molecule.
• Van der Waals forces are the sum of the attractive and repulsive electrical forces
between atoms and molecules. These forces differ from chemical bonding because
they result from fluctuations in charge density of particles.

• A hydrogen bond is an electrostatic attraction between two polar groups

 Smart/Advanced Materials
Self reporting: lets us know of changes occurring in the material e.g.
damage accumulation can lead to magnetization.
Responsive: responds to the environment and alters its properties (e.g.
photochromatic lenses which darken on exposure to sun light).
Responsive and self healing: responds to the environment or changes within
the material and can heal any deleterious changes (e.g. if cracks grow material
is released to heal the cracks).
Self cleaning
Self lubricating: an old concept, wherein the material puts up a surface layer
which acts like a lubricant (e.g. Al-graphite composites, wherein the graphite
acts like a lubricant).
Multi-functional: the material performs multiple roles in a single structure or
component. E.g.: the cover of a mobile can be its power cell too
 Atoms in 2-D and 3-D
• Crystal Structure
Atoms pack in periodic. A crystal structure is formed only when the group of atoms is
arranged identically at the lattice point.

• Lattice

It is a mathematical concept. lattice is only a virtual construct which describes the

distance and the direction from one motif to another
• Features of a Lattice
• Every single point of the lattice has the same surroundings
• A lattice has to be infinite according to its definition namely because the point at
the border does not have the same surroundings as a point at the center therefore
there must be no border of course in reality
• Crystals have borders and this leads to different physical or chemical properties at
the surface compared to the bulk phase

• Motif
 Building a Crystal
• A lattice point can be imagined as a connection point between neighboring unit
cells.

• Consider an arrangement of unit cells in 3D

• Lets consider only yz plane for simplicity. Lattice is characterized by its lattice
vectors. These are translational vectors it is also sometimes said that these vectors
span the unit cell and the lattice

• Putting Motif
 Closest Packed Structures
• The term "closest packed structures" refers to the most tightly packed or space-
efficient composition of crystal structures (lattices).

• Imagine an atom in a crystal lattice as a sphere. To maximize the efficiency of packing

and minimize the volume of unfilled space, the spheres must be arranged as close as
possible to each other. These arrangements are called closest packed structures.

• Note: Atoms are assumed to be spherical to explain the bonding and structures of
metallic crystals.
 Types of interstitial structures
• Trigonal hole
When a single layer of spheres is arranged into the shape of a hexagon, gaps are left
uncovered. The hole formed between three spheres is called a trigonal hole because it
resembles a triangle.

• Tetrahedral hole and Octahedral hole

Once the first layer of spheres is laid down, a second layer may be placed on top of it.
The second layer of spheres may be placed to cover the trigonal holes from the first
layer. Holes now exist between the first layer (the orange spheres) and the second (the
lime spheres), but this time the holes are different. The triangular-shaped hole created
over a orange sphere from the first layer is known as a tetrahedral hole. A hole from the
second layer that also falls directly over a hole in the first layer is called an octahedral
hole.
Closest Pack Crystal Structures
Coordination Number and Number of
Atoms Per Unit Cell
A unit cell is the smallest representation of an entire crystal. All crystal lattices are
built of repeating unit cells. In a unit cell, an atom's coordination number is the
number of atoms it is touching.
• The hexagonal closest packed (hcp) has a coordination number of 12 and contains
6 atoms per unit cell.
• The face-centered cubic (fcc) has a coordination number of 12 and contains 4
atoms per unit cell.
• The body-centered cubic (bcc) has a coordination number of 8 and contains 2
atoms per unit cell.
• The simple cubic has a coordination number of 6 and contains 1 atom per unit cell.
 Calculate Unit-cell Dimension from
Unit-cell Type and Density
• Pt crystallizes in a face-centered cubic (fcc) lattice with all atoms at the lattice
points. It has a density of 21.45 g/cm3 and an atomic weight of 195.08
amu. Calculate the length of a unit-cell edge.
• STRATEGY: We can calculate the mass of the unit cell from the atomic
weight. Knowing the density and the mass of the unit cell, we can calculate the
volume of a unit cell and then the edge length of a unit cell.
 Calculate Atomic Mass from Unit-Cell
Dimension and Density:
• The unit cell length for Ag was determined to be 408.6 pm. Ag crystallizes in a fcc lattice with
all atoms at the lattice points. Ag has a density of 10.50 g/cm3. Calculate the mass of a Ag atom,
and, using the known atomic weight (107.87 amu), calculate Avogadro's #.
• STRATEGY: We can calculate the unit cell volume. Then, from the density, we can find the mass
of the unit cell and then the mass of a single Ag atom. From this, we can find Avogadro's
number.
 Example

Reference: https://chem.libretexts.org
Indexing Crystallographic Points
1

* Indexing : An indicator or sign of something

Imperfections in Solids
Impurities
 Dislocations
• Dislocations can be visualized as being caused by the termination of a plane of
atoms in the middle of a crystal. In such a case, the surrounding planes are not
straight, but instead they bend around the edge of the terminating plane so that
the crystal structure is perfectly ordered on either side.
• The two primary types of dislocations are edge dislocations and screw dislocations.
Mixed dislocations are intermediate between these.
 Edge Dislocation
• An edge dislocation is a defect where an extra half-plane of atoms is introduced
midway through the crystal, distorting nearby planes of atoms.
• When enough force is applied from one side of the crystal structure, this extra
plane passes through planes of atoms breaking and joining bonds with them until
it reaches the grain boundary.
• A simple schematic diagram of such atomic planes can be used to illustrate lattice
defects such as dislocations. (Figure below represents the "extra half-plane"
concept of an edge type dislocation).

• The dislocation has two properties, a line direction, which is the direction running
along the bottom of the extra half plane, and the Burgers vector which describes
the magnitude and direction of distortion to the lattice. In an edge dislocation, the
Burgers vector is perpendicular to the line direction.
 Screw Dislocations
• It comprises a structure in which a helical path is traced around the linear defect
(dislocation line) by the atomic planes in the crystal lattice
• Its name “screw dislocation” because if we start at one point on the crystal
lattice and walk a path around that point, we end up immediately below that point
and if we continued to do that we would end up below that point again and so on.
 Bulk or Volume Defects

The defects in 3-dimension that change the crystal pattern over a finite volume.