Solid State Chemistry

Solid is one of the three main states of matter, along with liquid and gas. Matter is the “stuff” of the universe, the atoms, molecules and ions that make up all physical substances. In a solid, these particles are packed closely together and are not free to move about within the substance. Molecular motion for the particles in a solid is confined to very small vibrations of the atoms around their fixed positions; therefore, solids have a fixed shape that is difficult to change. Solids also have a definite volume; that is, they keep their size no matter how you try to change them. Materials chemistry produces an understanding of material properties, in particular by creating chemical correlations. This is based on four steps ranging from the design of a material, the synthesis and characterization up to potential applications. While the latter is more about the engineering disciplines, the first three steps are based mainly on chemical and physical principles. One focus of the materials chemistry therefore constitutes the methodical combination of chemical synthesis and characterization together with topics from materials science. Because of its direct relevance to products of commerce, solid state inorganic chemistry has been strongly driven by technology. Progress in the field has often been fueled by the demands of industry, well ahead of purely academic curiosity. Applications discovered in the 20th century include zeolite and platinum-based catalysts for petroleum processing in the 1950s, high-purity silicon as a core component of microelectronic devices in the 1960s, and “high temperature” superconductivity in the 1980s.