Syllabus

Course title: Survey of Materials (Introduction to Materials Science)

Class hours and location: Term 1B, Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri 12:30-15:30, room R2-B5-2026 (access via Zoom is available for critical activities)

Course website: zhugayevych.me/edu/Materials

Course Canvas site: skoltech.instructure.com/courses/3465, use it to

• get nonpublic files such as lectures/notes (Files) and videos (Pages)
• submit your works (Assignments), get feedback (Files) and see grades (Grades) except for the final one
• get announcements (Announcements) and Zoom links (Zoom)

Educational: code MA06063, 4 weeks by 40 hours, 6 ECTS, graduate level (MSc/BSc), max 20 students per TA, core course in Materials Science

Skoltech address: Main Campus at 30 Bolshoy Blvd, Blue Bldg at 3 Nobel St, see also public transportation

Instructor: Andriy Zhugayevych

Office: Blue Bldg 223b (closed during COVID outbreak)

Office hours: in class after 15:30, or by appointment in class before 12:30, or other time by Zoom-appointment

Phone: 3343

E-mail: a.zhugayevych@skoltech.ru, student emails will usually be answered in class

Co-Instructors: Artem Abakumov, Evgeny Antipov, Stanislav Fedotov, Sergey Levchenko, Victoria Nikitina, Keith Stevenson, Olga Ushakova

T.A.: Vasilii Vasilchenko (2021)

Description: The course teaches fundamentals of modern Materials Science (Part I of the course) and provides a survey of materials (Part II, per-material-class introduction to Materials Science), covering all relevant Skoltech research areas and beyond, with brief explanation of structural, electronic, physical, chemical or other properties of materials relevant for their practical use, with focus on utilizing their unique properties in applications, briefly explaining also relevant methods of materials synthesis and characterization, device fabrication and optimization.

It is a core course in Materials Science educational track providing a reference knowledgebase for the rest of material-specific courses as well for student research.

Intended learning outcomes:

• Basic knowledge of fundamentals of modern Materials Science as required in the output of the educational track and as an input for the rest of material-specific courses.
• Ability to understand and review scientific publications in Materials Science and Engineering as well as communicate orally or through writing the results of research to materials scientists and engineers.
• Knowledge of major classes of technologically important materials including structure, functional properties, and practical use.
• Ability to analyze and optimize existing materials, find practical use of them, and design new materials.
• Part II of the course also gives students a flavor of what research in Materials Science is conducted at Skoltech and attracts students to this research. Informally, this is the place where everybody (students, professors, researchers) meets everybody in person under the umbrella of Materials Science.

Assessment (see details here, see grading scheme):

• 4/15=27% – final project (presentation + discussion + science + report)
• 4/15=27% – 3 homeworks (there are 2 grades for two parts of HW2)
• 3/15=20% – 3 team projects
• 2/15=13% – Part I exam (theory + practice), everybody must pass it
• 2/15=13% – participation + scientific communication skills
• For each assignment students will get a written or oral feedback except for: 'A'-graded works, 'B'-graded late submissions, submissions made after grading

Prerequisites: The course relies on basic knowledge of physics or chemistry including quantum mechanics and statistical physics at undergraduate level, though most of the lectures should be understandable with only a general physics or chemistry background. See also Background textbooks and Required/optional software.

Textbooks:

• W A Harrison, Electronic structure and the properties of solids (Dover, 1989)
• N W Ashcroft, N D Mermin, Solid state physics (Cengage Learning, 1976)
• C Kittel, Introduction to Solid State Physics (Wiley, 2005), 8ed
• D G Pettifor, Bonding and structure of molecules and solids (Oxford, 1995)
• W D Callister Jr, D G Rethwisch, Materials science and engineering (Wiley, 2014), 9ed
• See the complete list here

Course content (see details here):

• Introduction. What is modern Materials Science. Materials Science at Skoltech
• Understanding scales. Classification of materials. Crystalline, amorphous, glasses, polycrystals, quasicrystals, thin films, low-dimensional structures, nanostructures. Metals, semi-metals, semiconductors, insulators, superconductors. Bonding: metallic, covalent, ionic, molecular solids, liquid crystals
• Atomistic structure. Crystallography. Amorphous solids
• Electronic structure and properties
• Most common crystal and molecular structures. Structural transformations and polymorphism. Structure-property relationships
• Structural materials
• Inorganic semiconductors: classical semiconductors (such as Si), perovskites, pnictides and chalcogenides (also phase change memory)
• Organic semiconductors
• Ionic conductors and storage materials, battery applications, fuel cells
• Electrolytes
• Catalysts
• Carbon nanotubes
• Other materials covered in Guest Lectures