TABLE OF CONTENTS Only connect
E. M. Forster
A genuine symbiosis may also emerge from complementary approaches. The typical chemist wants above all to understand why one substance behaves differently from another; the physicist usually wants to find principles that transcend any specific substance.
Dudley Herschbach (1997)
In this part we are mainly concerned with the electronic structure of matter. We start from atoms and ions, pass through molecules, then concentrate on solids in the crystalline state. Both bond and band approaches are introduced, contrasted and sometimes used side by side. Single-electron methods such as the molecular orbital method and the band method are our major topics, fully discussed, justified and their inevitable deficiencies delineated. On the other hand, many-body effects are emphasized from the start, culminating in the chapter on correlated electronic states. A special chapter is devoted to the electronic properties of nanostructures in order to connect with contemporary research.
This chapter is devoted to the bond approach with a strong chemical flavor. We believe that students of condensed matter physics should know the basic concepts of quantum chemistry and acquire some chemical insights, especially those interested in more complex structures.
Atoms are fundamental building blocks for molecules and condensed matter. Here we review some basic ideas of atomic physics, especially those closely related to quantum chemistry and condensed matter physics.
