Electronic Structure of Solids

Abstract

The basic language needed to understand the electronic structure of solids is introduced. The approach is chemically oriented and the notion of orbital interaction, so useful to understand the electronic structure of molecules, is used as much as possible. A step‐by‐step approach to the electronic structure of several solids is discussed. Notions like Density of states (DOS), Fermi surface (and nesting), Peierls distortions, charge and spin density waves (CDW/SDW), and COOP (crystal orbital overlap population) curves are presented and analyzed with reference to selected examples. The role of electron repulsions is also considered. The relationship between the electronic structure and the structural and transport properties of solids is discussed. A brief account of the more commonly used computational approaches for solids is also presented.