Solid State Physics

Rating:
Summary: very clear introduction to solid state physics
Review: A dated but very clear and useful introduction to this subject. One of my favorite textbooks.

Rating:
Summary: very clear introduction to solid state physics
Review: A dated but very clear and useful introduction to this subject. One of my favorite textbooks.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent introductory book for solid-state physicists
Review: Ashcroft and Mermin is an "amplified" version of basic solid state book! Must have!

This book offers an excellent, step-by-step introduction to crucial concepts of solid-state physics. I think, the authors have nicely avoided "reasoning surprises" that usually bother novice readers. To read this book smoothly, certainly you need "Physics 101" background; but other than that, the book seems to be self-contained. But don't be surprised if the problems are quite challenging (some are tough)!

The development of solid-state physics is presented in a more historical fashion--in opposition to rigid, systematic, definitive, and (sometimes) boring way that is commonly adopted by many other solid-state books.

In my opinion (hopefully wrong), this book has some shortcomings:

(1) detailed technical aspects, e.g. in XRD--you must refer to other technical books if you want to delve into them.

(2) links to interesting, research-related topics in modern solid state physics.

(3) new editions since the first release (how come?? Solid state physics has grown rapidly!).

These are probably due to the the introductory nature of this book. But it is good if there is a future revision, with point (2) above added in it, at least in the form of problems.

Rating:
Summary: Only for serious people
Review: If you do want to have a set of clear concepts on solid state
physics, this book is a good choice.

Rating:
Summary: Poorly Written and Presented
Review: The book is not easily read. The subject-matter is no more difficult than the Kittel version but the author does a poor job of displaying the material. It is often esoteric and incomprehensible. In addition to a poorly-written text, the assigned problems are not even related to what is covered in the text. The author has made the unfortunate assumption that he is the only one who will every read the text. There a very few students who could ever learn from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Only for serious people
Review: The books, despite being older than me, is still THE text book in solid state (same way as Led Zep is king of classical rock). Comprehensive, NO look-up-in-the-text kind of problems and thorough. People always wonder why there is no second edition of this book, simply because there isn't a single book which can meet its high standard.

Apart from that, you need a good teacher to teach this book. I took course in advanced solid state and used the same book, didn't even had a feeling of k-space. But later was blessed to take the course again with Aschroft. Not only he is an excellent researcher, but extra-ordinary teacher. Rediscovering solid state again was fulfilling with one of the best teacher and one of the best book to follow.

Rating:
Summary: Old, but still best
Review: Whenever you think about learning Solid State Physics, or the first stage of Condensed Matter Physics for college level, the Ashcroft/Mermin book is always the first textbook that you should chose. It covers almost everything basic carefully.
But a couple of things make the evaluation lower.
First, and obviously, the book is too old. It was published 18 years ago and never got any new edition. During this long long long time, Solid State Physics has already changed much. Semiconductors are already the most important topics and the discoveries of high Tc Superconductivity and Quantum Hall Effect in low dimensional systems have already largely switched people's interest in physics of Solid to a regime stressed on interactions and disorders... Many books start trying to put these topics together, but nothing better than seeing a new version of Ashcroft/Mermin with the new topics well integrated in.
The other one is about the presentation of this book. I just taught the class of Solid State Physics last year for the first time, and it turns out the presentation of the book is not so friendly to everyone. The chaptors of Nearly free electrons and Tight Binding model of the Band Theory are made fairly long, while not constructed in the best way, resulting in the puzzle of many students. Of course, if you study carefully, you still can get the ideas, but a lot of time is wasted. Considering the importance of these chaptors, this really pulls back the evaluation of the book. My suggestion is, when you study Solid State Physics, have more books as your reference, don't stick only on A/M when you feel troubled, although the A/M is still the best one in general.
I really hope the new edition of this book comes out soon, but considering the age of the authors, it may never happen.