Product Description

Since the publication of the first edition over 50 years ago, Introduction to Solid State Physics has been the standard solid state physics text for physics students. The author's goal from the beginning has been to write a book that is accessible to undergraduates and consistently teachable. The emphasis in the book has always been on physics rather than formal mathematics. With each new edition, the author has attempted to add important new developments in the field without sacrificing the book's accessibility and teachability.

* A very important chapter on nanophysics has been written by an active worker in the field. This field is the liveliest addition to solid state science during the past ten years
* The text uses the simplifications made possible by the wide availability of computer technology. Searches using keywords on a search engine (such as Google) easily generate many fresh and useful references

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42561 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 704 pages

About the Author
Charles Kittel did his undergraduate work in physics at M.I.T and at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He worked in the solid state group at Bell Laboratories, along with Bardeen and Shockley, leaving to start the theoretical solid state physics group at Berkeley in 1951. His research has been largely in magnetism and in semiconductors. In magnetism he developed the theories of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic resonance and the theory of single ferromagnetic domains, and extended the Bloch theory of magnons. In semiconductor physics he participated in the first cyclotron and plasma resonance experiments and extended the results to the theory of impurity states and to electron-hole drops.

He has been awarded three Guggenheim fellowships, the Oliver Buckley Prize for Solid State Physics, and, for contributions to teaching, the Oersted Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers, He is a member of the National Academy of Science and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Customer Reviews

7th Edition a Disappointment
My introductuctory course in solid state physics was taught from Kittel's 2nd edition and I recently taught a first year grad course from his 7th edition. Sadly, the quality of the text has deteriorated with time. The 7th edition is poorly organized, much of the new material is too sketchy to be useful and some of it is flat wrong. References were made to works of various individuals but the actual publications were not cited so it was difficult to locate the original papers.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a really good beginning level solid state text available. Aschcroft & Mermin is a little too advanced and has not been revised since the 70's, although I did find myself referring to it frequently to clarify some of the muddle in Kittel's book. Christman is out of print. Ibach and Luth is a little too thin and leaves out many important details. Burns may be a good choice if I teach this course again, altough it is somewhat dated. I certainly won't use Kittel's 7th edition again - my students detested it and I might say, for good reason.

Poorly written, lack of examples
Well, the negative reviews were correct. My solid state course has, unfortunately, decided to go with the Kittel 'standard' text, 8th edition. This book is difficult to learn from - largely because there is a severe shortage of quality examples and the material is not well explained throughout.

If you also are forced to use this text for a course, I would HIGHLY recommend purchasing supplement texts:

1. Solid State Theory, Walter A. Harrison (1979) - one of the best
2. Elementary Solid State Physics, M. Ali Omar (1999) - also good
3. Solid State Physics, Ashcroft/Mermin (1976/2003) - good

A pleasure to read if you're really interested
Kittel's Introduction to Solid State Physics is not a standard text by accident. It presents a wide range of topics in solid state physics at the level of sophistication typical of college seniors or new graduate students in physics. Whenever I am faced with any problem in condensed matter physics, I can confidently turn to Kittel, knowing that there is almost certainly an elementary explanation of the phenomenon in the book and references to further sources for more detailed or advanced treatments.

The ordering of topics in the book does not appear to display much continuity. However, the chapters are presented in a rough order of increasing difficulty, which is also the order in which those topics are introduced in a typical solid state physics class. The first twelve chapters, in particular, provide a good outline of a one-semester course in the basics of the subject. The ordering of the later chapters in not as logical, but the selection of topics used by instructors beyond the basics is very diverse. Introduction to Solid State Physics covers most of the interesting further topics that could reasonably be covered by a student familiar with the first half of the text.

In covering these further topics, the latest edition of the book offers a great deal of information about current topics in physics. The treatment of magnetic resonance, while hardly exhaustive, treats the major methods of the field in enough detail that an interested student could easilty learn more. Many of the topics, such as interface physics, are relatively new, but Kittel's treatment is excellent, stressing new experimental results whenever possible.

Kittel provides a great deal of experimental data as examples and to help the reader form a physical intuition about the effects being discussed. Moreover, the level of the physics and math required are not terrible advanced. For example, rather than delving into the details of BCS theory in the lengthy chapter on superconductivity, Kittel instead spends time on the experimentally observed facts of the phenomenon, treating Type I and Type II superconductors, the details of the Meissner effect, and other empirical topics.

The greatest weakness of the book is its somewhat awkward prose. However, an interested student should have little trouble with Kittel's style if he starts with the relatively easy early chapters, to get used to the style of writing.