Highlights of Solid State

Physics

Man of the Year Nobel

Prizes …

Physics Nobel Prize 2000Integrated Circuit

Silicon Technology

Gordon Moore

Jack Kilby

Moore’s Law

Intel

14 nm2014

Alferov Kroemer Physics Nobel Prize 2000

Electrons in the Conduction Band

Holes in the Valence Band

n-typep-type

Benefits of a quantum well:

1) Trap electrons and holes in the same quantum well and thereby give them more time to recombine into a photon.

2) Electrons and holes have well-defined, quantized energies, such that most of them contribute to the same laser line.

Physics Nobel Prize 2014 Akasaki Amano Nakamura

Use InGaN quantum wells in GaN.

Lighting consumes ¼ of our electric power.

Blue LED + Yellow Phosphor = White Light

Efficient Light Emitting Diodes

CCD (Charge Coupled Device)

Physics Nobel Prize 2009 : Boyle and Smith

The CCD detectors in digital cameras wiped out photographic film.

Charles Kao Physics Nobel Prize 2009

Optical Fiber Communication

Parallel Spin Filters Resistance Low

Opposing Spin Filters Resistance High

Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR)

for Sensitive Magnetic Readout

2007 Nobel Prize in Physics to Fert and Grünberg

Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM)

• Electron wave functions of the tip and surface atoms overlap and allow electrons to tunnel across vacuum.

• The tunneling probability decreases by a factor of 100 when retracting the tip by one atom diameter (0.2 nm).

1986 Nobel Prize in Physics to Binnig and

Rohrer

A significant fraction of our energy consumption goes into producing ammonia for fertili-

zers. Plants need nitrogen in a form that can be biologically converted into proteins. The

triple bond in N2 is too stable for that.

The Haber-Bosch synthesis uses iron oxide as catalyst to break the triple bond in N2 .

High temperature (4000C) and high pressure (200 atmospheres) drive the reaction to the

right side: N2 ammonia nitrites nitrates for fertilizers

Gerhard Ertl received the 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for

systematically unraveling the molecular reactions underlying

the Haber-Bosch process (1918 Nobel Prize in

Chemistry).

Surface Chemistry of Ammonia Synthesis

N2 + 3 H2 3 NH3

Density Functional Theory

provides a practical method for calculating

the behavior of electrons in molecules and solids

Walter Kohn, 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Quantum Hall EffectPrecision measurements of fundamental constants:

Resistance standard h/e2 , Electromagnetic coupling

constant = e2/ħc

Klaus von Klitzing, Nobel Prize in Physics 1985

Fractional Quantum Hall EffectExotic forms of matter in two dimensions:

One electron (blue circle) orbits around three magnetic

flux quanta (arrows).

Horst Störmer Dan Tsui Bob Laughlin

Nobel Prize in Physics 2000

Superconductors and Superfluids

1987 Physics Nobel Prize: Bednorz Müller 2003 Physics Nobel Prize:

Abrikosov

Ginzburg

Legett

Graphene, a single sheet of graphite

Nobel Prize in Physics 2010

Graphene is extremely strong and

provides a transparent conductor with

high electron mobility. Its E(p) relation is

linear instead of a quadratic, which

causes a different kind of quantum Hall

effect.

Geim and Novoselov

The only winner of a Nobel Prize and an Ig Nobel (“Ignoble”) Prize

Andre Geim’s frog

levitation experiment:

Same idea as levitating a

piece of superconductor

by a magnetic field. Both

frogs and

superconductors are

diamagnetic. The

induced magnetic field

opposes the inducing

field and leads to

repulsion.

Fullerenes (Buckyballs)

Zero-dimensional carbon

1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to: Curl

Kroto Smalley

Quasicrystals

2011 Chemistry Nobel Prize:

Dan Shechtman

Soft Matter

“Soft” matter does not exhibit the crystalline

order that is characteristic of “hard” matter. Its shape is dominated by entropy rather than energy.

Soft matter lends itself to self-assembly, from block copolymers (AAABBBBB) to living things.

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes received the 1991 Physics Nobel Prize for bringing order

into soft matter.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2000

Paper-like Flexible Displays

Protein Crystallography

• Protein crystallography has become essential for biochemistry, because the structure of a protein determines its function.

• This diffraction pattern of myoglobin contains about 3000 spots. From their intensities one obtains the positions of all the atoms.

Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction pattern of DNA, which led to the double-helix model by Watson and Crick

Structure of Ion Channels from

X-Ray Crystallography

2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Top view of an ion channel (ion at the

center) Also Prizes in 2012, 2009, 2006, …

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

(MRI)

Use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of protons in water.

Obtain spatial resolution by varying the magnetic field across the sample.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1991

Simultaneous measurement of all frequencies from the Fourier trans-form of a short pulse ( which is a continuous frequency spectrum ) .

Richard Ernst