Beloit College > Chemistry > Solid State Chemistry

Solids are an important part of our materials-intensive world and at the foundation of many emerging technologies. This course focuses on the relationships among structure, composition, and periodic properties; the characterization of atomic and molecular arrangements in crystalline and amorphous solids such as metals, minerals, ceramics, semiconductors and proteins; and applications to the fields of electronics, optics, magnetics, catalysis, and energy generation and storage. Laboratory work emphasizes the synthesis, purification and characterization of inorganic compounds. Three class periods and two laboratory periods per week. Offered in even years.

Prerequisite: Chemistry 220 or Chemistry 230 or Geology 200 or Physics 210.


Course Syllabus

Chemical Hazard Evaluations
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Hydrogen Atom Wave Functions
Download the Radial Distribution and Angular Function Program: Mac | Windows | Linux by G. Lisensky.
The program has a "Check for updates" menu item that can tell you whether you have the latest version. For Windows, the Windows Universal Runtime is required which is installed by Windows Update. If you get a message about a missing dll, run Windows Update. Since the Mac OSX applications are not signed, you will need to control-click the app icon and choose Open from the context menu the first time you run it.

Hydrogen Atom Orbital Viewer by Paul Falstad. Under the View menu, unselect "Energy" but keep the "Phase as Color" option. When the colors look good, choose "Stopped" in the window so the phase does not keep changing. Note that you can drag the orbital to look at it from different sides. Drag the applet window to fill the browser window and then print the browser window. (jsmol)

3-D Graphic Examples of Atomic Orbitals modified from Thomas Chasteen shows electron probability density. Be sure to drag on the orbital picture or turn "spin" on. (jsmol)

The Hydrogen Atomic Orbitals
by R. Spinney shows the radial distribution function and a probability distribution and a 95% surface. Be sure to drag on the orbital picture and use a transparent surface. (jsmol). These pages identify radial nodes as spherical nodes and they identify angular nodes as planar or conical nodes.

See also The First Image Ever of a Hydrogen Atom's Orbital Structure, G. Dvorsky at Gizmodo summarizes A. S. Stodolna, A. Rouzée, F. Lépine, S. Cohen, F. Robicheaux, A. Gijsbertsen, J. H. Jungmann, C. Bordas, and M. J. J. Vrakking, Phys Rev Lett, 110, 213001 (2013)

Periodic Table by Michael Dayah
Periodic Table Song (Video)


Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion (VSEPR)
Balloons (movie)
Balloons (figure)
Interactive Molecules (jsmol)
Molecule Shapes (html5 PhET simulation).
     Choose model option then drag atoms or lone pairs to the center atom and see the lowest energy shape.
Lewis Dot and Formal Charge (Tutorial Reviews)

Symmetry Resources by Dean Johnston (jsmol)

Crystal Structures
Hexagonal Close Packing (jsmol)
Cubic Close Packing (jsmol)
Solid State Structures (jsmol)
ZSM-5 Structure (jsmol)
Interactive Unit Cells and Layer Sequences (jsmol)
Interactive Unit Cells and Centering (jsmol)
ChemTube3D interactive structures and animations, University of Liverpool
The Materials Project, DOE, NSF, LBNL (sign in with google)

Crystal Field Theory
d-orbitals (Memorize!)
Ligand Fields and d-orbitals (jsmol)

Molecular Orbital Theory
Bonding by s-orbitals
Bonding by p-orbitals
Nitrogen dioxide π molecular orbitals

An Earth Scientist's Periodic Table by L. Bruce Railsback

Metal Complexes (jsmol)
Polydentate Ligands
Metal Carbonyl Compounds
Sandwich Compounds
Metal-Metal Bonds
Vaska Reactions

Teaching and Learning Packages, University of Cambridge (flash animations broken)
Semiconductors
Dislocations
Crystallography
Lattice Planes and Miller Indices

Plane Groups
Escher sketch by Anselm Levskaya

Space Groups
Download Spacegroup program: Mac | Windows | Linux
The program has a "Check for updates" menu item that can tell you whether you have the latest version. For Windows, the Windows Universal Runtime is required which is installed by Windows Update. If you get a message about a missing dll, run Windows Update. Since the Mac OSX applications are not signed, you will need to control-click the app icon and choose Open from the context menu the first time you run it.

Protractor

Space Group Diagrams and symbols from Birkbeck College, University of London. (These diagrams combine the symmetry elements and the equivalent position diagrams and are rotated compared to the International Tables.)

How to Read and Understand the International Tables for Crystallography A, J. Appl. Cryst. (2010) 43, 1150–1171
International Tables for Crystallography A, the standard reference for space group symmetry
Space Group Equivalent Position Tables from the Bilbao Crystallographic Server
Welcome to the world of crystallography from CSIC, Madrid
Crystallography from University of Oklahoma
Introduction to X-ray analysis using the diffraction method, Hideo Toraya (2016)

iORTEP Program
Download iORTEP: Mac | Windows | Linux | Download sample data | pdf help file
The program has a "Check for updates" menu item that can tell you whether you have the latest version. For Windows, the Windows Universal Runtime is required which is installed by Windows Update. If you get a message about a missing dll, run Windows Update. Since the Mac OSX applications are not signed, you will need to control-click the app icon and choose Open from the context menu the first time you run it.

Data for ORTEP problems

Bioinorganic Structures
Heomoglobin Tutorial (jsmol)
Metalloprotein Structures (jsmol)
MetalPDB, Florence. See search by metal.
Protein Data Bank, Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics

Last updated October 4, 2020 by George Lisensky

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