Recent content by mt42

Thanks. I read some Kittel last year but will try to revisit. Currently reading "Quantum Theory of Materials" by Kaxiras per recommendation from my PI. Thanks for your response. So when you say surface electrons in the first paragraphs, are you referring to physical surface or BZ surface? When...

Recently, I was giving a presentation for my research group related to ARPES to improve my understanding. I mentioned that the probing depth of ARPES is a few angstroms, meaning we can only look at surface states, and I was sort of giving a real space picture. In other words, ARPES can only...

Thank you, this is good for me to keep in mind. So once I find a system I want to study, I should use all I can in the lab to my advantage to create a coherent paper.

We do both growth (PLD) and characterization (PPMS, ARPES, EELS, XRD, XPS, AFM) of thin films in-house. We also go to national labs for spectroscopy, but I'm assuming that'll be difficult in the near future. I do want to learn more about PPMS because that is a versatile technique, and I know...

Basically, how do I go about choosing a topic to research over the summer and present in front of a committee in the fall? I'm a first year grad student and I've never had to choose what to research before. Good question, from what I've heard from senior grad students in the department, some...

Hi everyone, I believe this is the right board for this question, but feel free to move the thread if it's not. How do I go about choosing what to study for the qual? This is something that's been on my mind for a while, and now my advisor wants me to send him some ideas for the next few...

This was refreshing to hear. I need to keep in mind that physical interpretations are subject to change from person to person and of course over time. In this case, I hear my advisor talk about "electron hopping" a lot, so I'll have to keep him on his toes!

Hi Nate, Thank you! I've actually been using these resources :) I'm confused when a sentence like this is used though: "This spin exchange qualitatively changes the energy spectrum of the system" After more investigation today, it seems like the scattering produces an "excitation" near the...

Hi everyone! I'm a first-year PhD student in condensed matter experiment. I'm always looking to learn more about physics, especially in the early stages of my career, and what better place to do that than a virtual room full of physicists! I'm excited to ask questions and see what others have to...

Hi all, I'm preparing a short presentation about the Kondo effect. I'm going to talk about the Anderson model and then Kondo's approach to deriving the logarithmic term using perturbation theory. Here's my question: why is it important that the spin of the impurity flips? I understand that...