Band theory, crystal orbital method

BAC-MP4 method, description, 344-346 Band theory, crystal orbital method, 149 Be clusters, structures, 24-25 Bifurcation... 

The availability of detailed information about the electronic states of PDAs makes them ideal systems to test molecular quantum mechanical theories. The earliest calculation for a model PDA chain with simple sidegroups gave rather poor values for the band-gap, see (7). In most of these calculations Coulomb correlations were neglected so that only band structures were deduced. Further work along these lines has included the use of an ab initio crystal orbital method [105), studies of the ground state geometries [106), a priori Hartree Fock crystal orbital calculations (107) and a non-empirical effective Hamiltonian technique [108). These show... 

The SCF method for molecules has been extended into the Crystal Orbital (CO) method for systems with ID- or 3D- translational periodicityiMi). The CO method is in fact the band theory method of solid state theory applied in the spirit of molecular orbital methods. It is used to obtain the band structure as a means to explain the conductivity in these materials, and we have done so in our study of polyacetylene. There are however some difficulties associated with the use of the CO method to describe impurities or defects in polymers. The periodicity assumed in the CO formalism implies that impurities have the same periodicity. Thus the unit cell on which the translational periodicity is applied must be chosen carefully in such a way that the repeating impurities do not interact. In general this requirement implies that the unit cell be very large, a feature which results in extremely demanding computations and thus hinders the use of the CO method for the study of impurities. 

Compliance with the octet rule in diamond could be shown simply by using a valence bond approach in which each carbon atom is assumed sp hybridized. However, using the MO method will more clearly establish the connection with band theory. In solids, the extended electron wave functions analogous to MOs ate called COs. Crystal orbitals must belong to an irreducible representation, not of a point group, but of the space group reflecting the translational periodicity of the lattice. 

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. 

Several methods exist for calculating g values. The use of crystal field wave functions and the standard second order perturbation expressions (22) gives g = 3.665, g = 2.220 and g = 2.116 in contrast to the experimentaf values (at C-band resolution) of g = 2.226 and g 2.053. One possible reason for the d screpancy if the use of jperfXirbation theory where the lowest excited state is only 5000 cm aboye the ground state and the spin-orbit coupling constant is -828 cm. A complete calculation which simultaneously diagonalizes spin orbit and crystal field matrix elements corrects for this source of error, but still gives g 3.473, g = 2.195 and g = 2.125. Clearly, covalent delocalization must also be taken into account. 

The band structure of a three-dimensional solid, such as a semiconductor crystal, can be obtained in a similar fashion to that of a polyene. Localized molecular orbitals are constructed based on an appropriate set of valence atomic orbitals, and the effects of delocalization are then incorporated into the molecnlar orbital as the number of repeat units in the crystal lattice is increased to infinity. This process is widely known to the chemical conununity as extended Hiickel theory (see Extended Hiickel Molecular Orbital Theory). It is also called tight binding theory by physicists who apply these methods to calcnlate the band structures of semiconducting and metallic solids. 

In the second part (applications) we discuss some recent applications of LCAO methods to calculations of various crystalline properties. We consider, as is traditional for such books the results of some recent band-structure calculations and also the ways of local properties of electronic- structure description with the use of LCAO or Wannier-type orbitals. This approach allows chemical bonds in periodic systems to be analyzed, using the well-known concepts developed for molecules (atomic charge, bond order, atomic covalency and total valency). The analysis of models used in LCAO calculations for crystals with point defects and surfaces and illustrations of their applications for actual systems demonstrate the eflSciency of LCAO approach in the solid-state theory. A brief discussion about the existing LCAO computer codes is given in Appendix C. 

---