This is a revised edition of the 1999 text on the electronic structure
and properties of solids, similar in spirit to the well-known 1980 text
Electronic Structure and the Properties of Solids. The revisions include
an added chapter on glasses, and rewritten sections on spin-orbit
coupling, magnetic alloys, and actinides. The text covers covalent
semiconductors, ionic insulators, simple metals, and transition-metal
and f-shell-metal systems. It focuses on the most important aspects of
each system, making what approximations are necessary in order to
proceed analytically and obtain formulae for the properties. Such
back-of-the-envelope formulae, which display the dependence of any
property on the parameters of the system, are characteristic of
Harrison's approach to electronic structure, as is his simple
presentation and his provision of all the needed parameters.In spite of
the diversity of systems and materials, the approach is systematic and
coherent, combining the tight-binding (or atomic) picture with the
pseudopotential (or free-electron) picture. This provides parameters --
the empty-core radii as well as the covalent energies -- and conceptual
bases for estimating the various properties of all these systems.
Extensive tables of parameters and properties are included.The book has
been written as a text, with problems at the end of each chapter, and
others can readily be generated by asking for estimates of different
properties, or different materials, than those treated in the text. In
fact, the ease of generating interesting problems reflects the
extraordinary utility and simplicity of the methods introduced.
Developments since the 1980 publication have made the theory simpler and
much more accurate, besides allowing much wider application.
