Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Course Description

This course is a graduate level course in magnetic materials. The level of treatment presumes familiarity with differential calculus as well as introductory atomic physics and quantum mechanics of solids. The course moves from observation to understanding of magnetic phenomena at increasing levels of sophistication. The characteristics of magnetic materials are treated in the context of related effects in other materials. For example, magnetic and electric polarization and susceptibility are treated in parallel; ferromagnetism is compared to ferroelectricity; the reasons for ferromagnetic spin alignment are contrasted with superconducting spin pairing; magnetic anisotropy and magnetostriction are compared with anisotropic electric polarization, electrostriction and piezoelectricity.

Readings

The text for the course is:

O'Handley, R. C. Modern Magnetic Materials, Principles and Applications. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1999. ISBN: 9780471155669.

Useful backup texts (in increasing level or treatment) include:

Jiles, D. C. Introduction to Magnetism and Magnetic Materials. New York: Chapman and Hall, 1991. ISBN: 9780412386305.

Cullity, B. Introduction to Magnetic Materials. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1972. ISBN: 9780201012187.

Chikazumi, S. Physics of Ferromagnetism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780198517764.

Grades

There will be one one-hour exam about half way through the term. There is no written final examination. A written report and its oral presentation, on an appropriate topic chosen by the student, will be due at the end of the term. The grades will be determined as follows: