This book deals with the effect of crystal symmetry in determining the tensor properties of crystals. Although this is a well-established subject, the author provides a new approach using group theory and, in particular, the method of symmetry coordinates, which has not been used in any previous book. The author presents applications to technologically important phenomena as diverse as the electro-optic, piezoelectric, photoelastic, piezomagnetic, and piezoresistance effects, as well as magnetothermoelectric power and third-order elastic constants. He also gives attention to "special magnetic properties", i.e., those that require the concepts of time reversal and magnetic symmetry--an important subject not always covered in other books in this area. This book will be of interest to researchers in solid state physics and materials science, and will also be suitable as a text for graduate students in physics and engineering taking courses in solid state physics.

Complete with reference tables and sample problems, this volume serves as a textbook or reference for solid-state physics and chemistry, materials science, and engineering. Chapters illustrate symmetry, and its role in determining solid properties, as well as a demonstration of group theory.

This book provides a rigorous account on the fundamentals and applications of Group Theory to chemical physics.

Reissue of Encyclopedia of Physics/Handbuch der Physik, Vol. XXV/2b I am very pleased that my book is now to be reprinted and rebound in a new format which should make it accessible at a modest price to students and active researchers in condensed matter physics. In writing this book I had in mind an audience of physicists and chemists with no previous deep exposure to symmetry analysis of crystalline matter, non to the use of symmetry in simplifying and refining predictions of the results of optical experiments. Hence the book was written to explain and illustrate in all necessary detail how to: 1) describe the space group symmetry in terms of space group symmetry operations; 2) obtain irreducible representations and selection rules for optical infra-red and Raman and other transition processes. On the physical side I redeveloped the traditional theory of classical and quantum lattice dynamics, illustrating how space-time symmetry designations in the equations of motion can: 1) simplify and rationalize calculations of the classical eigenvectors of the dynamical equation; 2) permit classification of the eigenstates of the quantum lattice-dynamic pro blem; 3) give specific selection rules for optical infra-red and Raman lattice processes, and thus make "go, no-go" predictions including polarization of absorbed or scattered radiation; and 4) simplify the modern many-body theories of optical processes.

An applications-oriented approach gives graduate students and researchers in the physical sciences the tools needed to analyze any physical system.