Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science

1. Fundamentals of classical and relativistic mechanics:

• Momentum conservation principle
• Angular momentum conservation principle
• Energy conservation principle
• Galileo and Lorentz transformations
• Mass-energy equivalence, examples

2. Electromagnetism:

• charge conservation principle
• Electrostatic field, scalar potential
• Magnetic field, Vector potential of magnetic field
• Electric charge in magnetic field (examples of applications)
• Electromagnetic wave equation
• Plane and spherical waves
• Interference and diffraction

3. Thermodynamics and statistical physics:

• Maxwell distribution
• Boltzmann distribution
• Temperature
• I principle of thermodynamics
• Entropy and II principle of thermodynamics

 4. Experimental and theoretical foundations of quantum mechanics:

• Black-body radiation
• Photoelectric effect
• Compton effect
• atomic spectral lines
• Electron diffraction on crystal (Davisson-Germer experiment)
• Stern-Gerlach experiment, electron spin
• Postulates of quantum mechanics
• wave function
• uncertainty principle

5. Structure of matter:

• atom and its structure
• chemical bonds
• electron band structure of solids
• electrical conductivity of metals, semiconductors and insulators
• superconductivity
• magnetism of solids
• crystal structure

 

1. Fundamentals of biophysics

• Synchrotron radiation – generation, properties and examples of applications in biological studies
• Methods in surface science (for example: AES – Auger electron spectroscopy, XPS – X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, SIMS – secondary ion mass spectrometry)
• Spectroscopic methods in biological and medical investigations (for example: EPR,
• NMR, Mössbauer spectroscopy, Infrared and Raman spectroscopy)
• Microscopies of high resolution (electron microscopy, STM – scanning tunneling microscopy, AFM – atomic force microscopy, confocal microscopy)
• Biological membranes – their structure and properties
• Proteins and enzymatic reactions
• Radiative and non-radiative energy transfer (Jabłoński diagram, Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), Dexter energy transfer)
• Electron transfer in biological systems (temperature dependent and temperature independent – tunneling)

 

2. Fundamentals of nuclear physics

• Elementary particles – the standard model
• Evolution of the Universe (in particular: creation of elements)
• Properties of atomic nuclei and the methods of their investigation
• Nuclear forces, binding energy, models of atomic nucleus
• Radioactive transformations of atomic nuclei
• Natural radioactivity of rocks, waters and air
• Accelerators of charged particles
• Nuclear reactions (in particular: fission and fusion of nuclei)
• Interaction of charged particles, gamma radiation and neutrons with matter
• Detection of charge particles, gamma radiation and neutrons
• Neutron sources
• Applications of nuclear isotopes (chosen examples)

 

3. Fundamentals of solid state physics:

• Crystallography – basic definitions
• Free-electron model
• Interatomic bonds in solids
• X-ray diffraction
• Phonons
• Electron band-structure
• Semiconductors
• Magnetic properties of matter
• Superconductivity
• Applications of NMR and Mössbauer Spectroscopy in Solid State Physics
• Synchrotron radiation – generation, properties and examples of application
• Basic ideas of new materials: quasicrystals, fullerenes, high-temperature superconductors, conducting polymers, semiconducting nanostructures

 

4. Fundamentals of theoretical and computational physics

• Postulates of quantum mechanics – illustrated by examples
• Physical interpretation of wave function
• Quantum stationary states
• Electron spin: experiment and theory
• Quantum statistics: : bosons and fermions
• Pauli exclusion principle
• Exchange Interaction
• Laplace and Poisson equations and physical processes described by these equations
• Diffusion equation and physical processes described by this equation
• Simple finite-difference methods of solving equations of classical dynamics
• Physical and numerical foundations of classical molecular dynamics
• The method of simulated annealing

 

5. Elements of  elementary particle interactions and detection techniques

• Elementary particles – the Standard Model: matter particles and bosons mediating the interactions. Unification of electroweak interactions.
• Relativistic momentum, kinetic energy, total energy, relativistic effects, four-vectors formalizm and relativistic invariants (e.g. CMS)
• Feynman diagram formalism
• Electromagnetic processes (photoeffect, Compton effect, pair production, total cross section)
• Strong interactions (inelastic scattering)
• Accelerators of charged particles (colliders & fixed-target, linear & circular)
• Bethe-Bloch formula
• Elementary principles in particle detection, spectrometry, tracking and calorimetry.
• Fundamental concepts of collider experiments – on the example of LHC experiments (ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, LHCb)
• The working principles of radiation detectors (gaseous detector, scintillation counter, semiconductor detector, photomultiplier)
• Principles of operation of basic semiconductor devices: p-n junction, bipolar transistor, MOS transistor
• Basic principles of signal processing (signal processing in spectrometer, filtering, ENC)