SOLID STATE CHEMISTRY

Degree course: 
Corso di Second cycle degree in CHEMISTRY
Academic year when starting the degree: 
2017/2018
Year: 
2
Academic year in which the course will be held: 
2018/2019
Language: 
English
Credits: 
8
Period: 
Second semester
Standard lectures hours: 
64
Requirements: 

Exams of General and Inorganic Chemistry and Strutturistica Chimica successfully passed.

Final Examination: 
Orale

Oral presentation on a subject chosen by the student and related to the arguments of the course.
Oral test, based on at least 4 questions of the classroom teaching.

Assessment: 
Voto Finale

Goal of the course is presenting methodological and structural aspects for the comprehension of ionic and molecular solids, mostly, but not only, of inorganic nature.
In the first part of the course, the notions acquired during the course of “Strutturistica Chimica” will be developed, with particular reference to the methods for structural solution by single crystal and powder diffraction. Frontier methodologies for the structural and microstructural characterization of defective materials and nanomaterials will be also presented and described (with the aid of practical sessions).
In the second part of the course, some aspects of the wide world of the solid state chemistry will be introduced, with particular emphasis towards the structural description of the inorganic crystalline materials and their defectiveness, to the structural- properties relationships for these materials and to the connections between their functional properties and the technological applications.

Part I (Materials and functional properties):
- Crystal Chemistry: close packing of spheres; interstitial cavities; hcp, fcc and bcc solids; polytypism of crystal structures; coordination polyhedra; reference inorganic structure (halite, sphalerite, fluorite-antifluorite, diamond, wurtzite, CsCl, AX2 and A2X compounds); oxides with AmBnOp structure (perovskites and spinels); silica and silicates classification.
- Structural defects, non-stoichiometric solids and solid solutions: intrinsic points defects (Schottky, Frenkel), extrinsic point defects, color centers; non-stoichiometric compounds; solid solutions; Vegard Law and other methods for the characterization of the solid solutions. Exended defects: shear planes, intergrowths, stacking faults, antiphase domains, dislocations.
- Electronic, magnetic and optical properties of solid materials.
- Polymorphism: concept development and nomenclature; technological relevance; structural origin; thermodynamic description of monotropic and enantiotropic polymorphs; examples.
- Preparation methods for crystalline and nano crystalline materials.
- Materials of technological interest (zeolites and metalloganic frameworks, perovskites).

Part II (Crystallographic Methods): - revision on the diffraction theory. - Powder diffraction: quantitative analysis; indexing and structural solution; the Rietveld method; Total Scattering techniques for the structural and microstructural characterization of crystalline (defective) and nanocrystalline materials. Elements of Small Angle X-ray Scattering.
- Single Crystal X-ray Diffraction: structural solution and refinement; multipolar model for the modeling of the experimental electron density in crystals; topological analysis of the electron density (QTAIM).

Suggested textbook:
“Fundamentals of Crystallography", by C. Giacovazzo, H.L. Monaco, G. Artioli, D. Viterbo, G. Ferraris, G.Gilli, G. Zanotti, M. Catti. Oxford University Press.
“Crystallography for health and biosciences”, by A. Guagliardi and N. Masciocchi, Insubria University Press.
Materials (slides, book chapters) provided during the course.

Classroom lections + occasional exercises.