Orbital Approach to the Electronic Structure of Solids

This book provides an intuitive yet sound understanding of how structure and properties of solids may be related. The natural link is provided by the band theory approach to the electronic structure of solids. The chemically insightful concept of orbital interaction and the essential machinery of band theory are used throughout the book to build links between the crystal and electronic structure of periodic systems. In such a way, it is shown how important tools for understanding properties of solids like the density of states, the Fermi surface etc. can be qualitatively sketched and used to either understand the results of quantitative calculations or to rationalize experimental observations. Extensive use of the orbital interaction approach appears to be a very efficient way of building bridges between physically and chemically based notions to understand the structure and properties of solids.

Enric Canadell, Professor, Institut de Ciencia de Materials de Barcelona, Marie-Liesse Doublet, Professor, Institut Charles Gerhardt de Montpellier, Christophe Iung, Professor, Institut Charles Gerhardt de Montpellier
Enric Canadell was educated at the Universities of Barcelona and Autonoma de Madrid, conducted research at the Universities of Barcelona, Chicago and Paris -Sud Orsay and since 1996 is Research Professor at the Institut de Ciencia de Materials de Barcelona (CSIC). He is mostly interested in the development of ideas to relate the structure and properties of solids. In 1995 was awarded the Rochat-Julliard Prize of the Academie des Sciences de Paris for work on the electronic structure of low dimensional solids.

Marie-Liesse Doublet was educated at Universite de Paris-Sud Orsay and carried out research at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Institut des Materiaux de Nantes and Universite de Montpellier 2 where she is now Directeur de Recherches (CNRS). Her research work deals with the electronic structure of solids with a special interest for energy storage materials.

Christophe Iung studied at Ecole Normale Superieure de St Cloud and holds a Ph. D. from Universite de Paris-Sud Orsay. He is now Full Professor and Vice-President of the Education Council of the University of Montpellier 2. His main research interest is in the field of quantum molecular dynamics.