Condensed Matter Physics II

PHYS 446 picks up where the single-electron, free-lattice picture of solids breaks down and asks what happens once you take interactions seriously — how electrons couple to phonons, to each other, and to external fields to produce magnetism, superconductivity, and the optical and dielectric response of real materials. You'll work through problem sets, a take-home midterm, and a term project that pushes you to read past Kittel into Ashcroft/Mermin or current literature. It's the natural sequel to PHYS 445, and the conceptual toolkit here — BCS pairing, magnons, dielectric functions — is what underpins essentially every graduate-level condensed matter, device physics, or materials course you'd take next.