P. A. Cox - Böcker

Recent years have seen a considerable growth of interest in chemical aspects of the electronic structure of solids. Most books on solids are addressed to physicists, and present a more mathematical and fundamental account of the subject than is appropriate for students of chemistry. The present book takes a different view, and shows how the electronic structures and properties of solids can be described in terms familiar to chemists. The first three chapters give a fairly elementary account, suitable for undergraduate students with a reasonable grounding in inorganic and physical chemistry. The later chapters present slightly more advanced aspects, including many topics of current research interest, such as metal-insulator transitions, low-dimensional solids and 'molecular metals', and the properties of surfaces. The discussion is illustrated by a wide variety of examples.

This study examines the origins of the chemical elements which are the basic building blocks of ordinary matter. The text explores the factors controlling their widely differing abundances, and their distribution in the Earth, solar system and universe. The text begins with a broad introduction to the range of elements which exist and a consideration of some of their nuclear and chemical properties. An account of the origins of the elements in space is followed by a chapter on cosmochemistry and the solar system. Attention is then focused on the Earth and the distribution of elements on the planet's surface: in the minerals of the crust, in the ocean, and in living species.

Chemistry students need a basic understanding of quantum theory and its applications to atomic and molecularstructure and spectroscopy. This book develops the basic concepts needed as background, and discusses atomic structure but not molecular applications. The first two chapters are concerned with the basic ideas and problems of wave-particle duality, the nature of wavefunction, and its statistical interpretation. Chapter 3 discusses some important applications of Schrodinger's equation to chemically relevant situations. Chapters 4 and 5 deal respectively with the hydrogen atom, and with the structure of many electron atoms and the periodic table of elements. The emphasis throughout is on the physical concepts and their concrete application. The required background in mathematics is elementary calculus and the properties of trigonometric and exponential functions, but not complex numbers. Necessary concepts of classical physics are developed as required.

Transition metal oxides form a series of compounds with a uniquely wide range of electronic properties. They have important applications as dielectrics,semiconductors, and metals, and as materials for magnetic and optical uses. The recent discovery of `high temperature' superconductors has brought the attention of a wide scientific community to this area and has highlighted the problems involved in trying to understand transition metal oxides. The present book is not primarily about Tc superconductors, although their main properties are discussed in the final sections. The main aim is to describe the varied electronic behaviour shown by transition metal oxides, and to discuss the different types of theoretical model that have been proposed to interpret it. It is intended to provide an introduction to this fascinating and difficult field, at a level suitable for graduate students and other research workers with a background in solid- state chemistry or physics.

This book is the first to give a comprehensive account of the fundamental properties of metal-oxide surfaces and their interaction with atoms, molecules and overlayers. The surfaces of metal oxides play a crucial role in an extremely wide range of phenomena, including the environmental degradation of high-Tc superconductors and catalysis. They are also increasingly important in processes such as the passivation of metal surfaces and gas sensing for pollution monitoring and control. As well as giving a general overview of the properties of metal-oxides, an extensive and thorough compilation of the research that has been performed on well characterised oxide surfaces is provided, thus making the book suitable for those graduate students and established researchers in materials science, chemistry or physics who have an interest in metal-oxide surfaces.