Most of the photos, graphics and schematics were prepared specially by the author, however a few were found on the internet and borrowed with the authors permission. For these I must thank:

Prof. Shanaka de Silva (Indiana State University)

Prof. Oleg Lavrentovich (Kent State University) and

Prof. Steven Parker (Bath University)

Two types of reference material have been used in the construction of this site. The first was supplementing the authors general knowledge - so that's text books. The second is web based material, which is mostly linked to at the bottom of the section. In order to acknowledge everyone fully however, I am including here a list of books (with links to Amazon where appropriate) and a list of the more general web pages used with links. I am also including here a list of the tools used to produce the graphics, most of which are software normally used for research.

Books

Elliott, The Physics and Chemistry of Solids (Wiley)

Kittel, Introduction to Solid State Physics (Wiley)

Smart & Moore, Solid State Chemistry (Stanley Thornes)

West, Basic Solid State Chemistry and Solid State Chemistry and It's Applications (Wiley)

Web Pages

In addition to those listed as links at the bottom of each section:

Eric Weisstein's World of Physics (Wolfram Research)

How Stuff Works (Raleigh, North Carolina)

Volcano World (University of North Dakota)

Webelements (University of Sheffield)

Xrefer

Others

ATOMS (Shapesoftware)

Cambridge Structural Database (CCDC)

SMART and SHELXTL Software (Bruker)

Microsoft Office 2000 (Microsoft)

About This Site...

This site is designed as a supplementary teaching aid to undergraduates at the University of Durham. Some students study a module called "Materials", which is taught during the Michaelmas and Epiphany terms. Although it is meant for students with some prior knowledge, it should also be comprehensible to anyone with any science background or interest.

About The Author...

I am a postgraduate student at the University of Durham. My first degree was in Chemistry, also at Durham and I took the "Materials" module in my third year and was hooked! However, I had spent the previous year working in industry and had spent too little of my first two years studying, so I found my third year very hard. For this reason, I have a great deal of sympathy with students who have difficulties and I wrote this trying to assume no prior knowledge, so that anyone who had not understood a lecture course (or missed one for any reason) could still follow.

Since I found material science so interesting, I thought I might be able to help other young scientists and ultimately, maybe interest them in what I think is this fascinating area of chemistry.

Thanks...

And finally, thanks must go to all those who have helped me, both making this website and during the last couple of years of my Ph.D.. These include:

My supervisors - Dr. Andrés Goeta (University of Durham) & Prof. Judith Howard (University of Durham)

My proof-readers - Dr. Neil Cameron (University of Durham), Elinor Spencer (University of Durham) & Chris Cooper (Teeside University)

My colleagues - The Crystallography Group (University of Durham)

And yourself for reading!

Last updated 31 October, 2002