Andrea Caneschi and Paola Paoli

6 ECTS: 32 hours of lectures and 24 hours of laboratory practice

Aims: The course aims at providing the fundamental concepts of solid state with emphasis on structure-property (magnetic, electronic, optical, etc.) and structure-function (sensing, energy storage, etc.) relationships. The student will gain competences in crystallography and other X-ray based characterization techniques and will be introduced to the main technological applications of solid state materials.

Lectures: Classification of materials. Introduction to the solid state (band structure, symmetry elements, lattices, point groups, Laue classes, crystal systems, Bravais lattices, space groups). Elements of X-ray diffraction (both from single crystal and microcrystalline material), X-ray crystallography and other non-destructive X-ray techniques (X-ray fluorescence and X-ray microtomography). Dimensional effects in the solid state. Overview of materials for applications in electronics, optics, and energy.

Laboratory practice: Synthesis of metallic and metal-oxide nanoparticles, synthesis of a high temperature superconductor, single crystal and powder X-ray diffraction data collection and analysis, X-ray fluorescence and X-ray microtomography analyses, magnetic and optical characterization.