Transition metal compounds, band theory calculations

First we consider the origin of band gaps and characters of the valence and conduction electron states in 3d transition-metal compounds [104]. Band structure calculations using effective one-particle potentials predict often either metallic behavior or gaps which are much too small. This is due to the fact that the electron-electron interactions are underestimated. In the Mott-Hubbard theory excited states which are essentially MMCT states are taken into account dfd -y The subscripts i and] label the transition-metal sites. These... 

In the realm of theory also, greater demands will be made. As such studies (37—39) as those of Cu—Ni (Fig. 13) and Ag—Pd (Fig. 14) have shown, the d levels of the two species in transition metal alloys tend to maintain their atomic identities, at least when the levels in the pure components are sufficiently well separated in energy. However, neither calculation nor experiment has been done with refinement sufficient for quantitative testing of a theory, such as the coherent potential approximation, designed to describe the d band behavior. In pure metals and intermetallic compounds, band calculations can be compared directly with experiment if transition probabilities and relaxation effects are understood. With care they can be used also in evaluation of the effective interelectronic terms which enter equations such as (18a). Unfortunately, one cannot, by definition, produce a set of selfconsistent band calculation results for a matrix of specific valence electron snpmdl.. . configurations thus, direct estimates for I of Eq. (18a) or F of Eq. (18b) cannot be made. However, band calculations for a set of systems can indicate whether or not it is reasonable to factor level shifts into volume and electron count terms, in the manner of Eqs. (18a) and (23). When this cannot be done, one must revert to a more general expression for a level shift, such as Eq. (1). 

So far, we have briefly touched upon the ligand field approach and AI calculation on transition metal complexes. In our view, it is important to realize that these two approaches have fundamentally different goals. LFT aims at providing a conceptual framework which qualitatively describes the properties of a class of compounds in as-simple-as-possible terms. It is not meant to be a theory that lets one to predict the properties of a given compound accurately without any external input. Thus, using LFT, it is possible to predict how many absorption bands are expected in the UV-vis spectra of, say, high-spin d3 systems, which of them are spin-allowed. Only after adjustment of certain parameters (to be described later), one can make semiquantitative estimates of the positions - and perhaps also the intensities - of these bands. However, importantly, LFT makes the statement that there are many properties that are common to the class of high-spin d3 systems - or, in fact, that any d" share a number of physical properties. 

We start with the question of what happens to the large orbital moment of f electrons when they are hybridized with other states in solids. This question, of course, is central to understanding the unusual properties of actinide (and cerium) compounds. Form-factor measurements had shown the importance of hybridization effects in compounds such as UGej (Lander et al. 1980), but at that time no theory had been developed to handle these effects in particular the orbital contribution was known to be incorrectly treated in band-structure calculations (Brooks et al. 1984, Brooks 1985). Brooks, Johansson, and their collaborators corrected this deficiency by adding an orbital polarization term in the density-functional approximation (see the chapter by Brooks and Johansson (ch. 112) in this volume). When they made calculations on a series of intermetallic compounds, particularly those with a transition metal in the compact fee Laves phase, they found that the value of was reduced compared to the free-ion values. Loosely speaking, we can associate such a partial quenching of the /j ,-value with the fact that the 5f electrons have become partially itinerant, and we know that fully itinerant electrons (in the 3d metals, for example) have 0. 

The formation of C-C chemical bonds in a variety of solids, including some refractory dicarbides, has been considered by Li and Hoffman (1989) and Wijeyesekera and Hoffman (1984) based on EHT (extended Huckel theory) calculations. To our knowledge, these works are the only ones where the band analogues of bond populations, the so-called crystal orbital overlap populations (COOPs) have been calculated for refractory compounds. The most noticeable result is that, in spite of the evident crudeness of the nonself-consistent semiempirical EHT method, the calculations allow us to understand the nature of the phase transition from cubic to hexagonal structure which occurs in the ZrC, NbC, MoC,... series as the VEC increases. The increase of metal-to-metal bonding when going from cubic (NaCl-type) to hexagonal (WC-type) becomes evident. 

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