Book excerpt: This book fills a gap between many of the basic solid state physics and materials sciencebooks that are currently available. It is written for a mixed audience of electricalengineering and applied physics students who have some knowledge of elementaryundergraduate quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. This book, based on asuccessful course taught at MIT, is divided pedagogically into three parts: (I) ElectronicStructure, (II) Transport Properties, and (III) Optical Properties. Each topic is explainedin the context of bulk materials and then extended to low-dimensional materials whereapplicable. Problem sets review the content of each chapter to help students to understandthe material described in each of the chapters more deeply and to prepare them to masterthe next chapters.