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'Solid-state chemistry' is the study of solid materials, which may be molecular. Solid-state chemistry studies both the synthesis, the structure, and the physical properties of solids. It therefore has a strong overlap with solid-state physics, mineralogy, crystallography, ceramics, metallurgy, thermodynamics, materials science and electronics with a focus on the synthesis of novel materials.

Contents

History

Synthetic methods

History

Because of its direct relevance to products of commerce, solid state inorganic chemistry has been strongly driven by technology well in advance of atomic-level descriptions or academic studies. Applications discovered in the 20th century include zeolite and platinum-based catalysts for petroleum processing in the 1950’s, high-purity silicon as a core component of microelectronic devices in the 1960’s, and “high temperature” superconductivity in the 1980’s. The invention of X-ray crystallography in the early 1900s by William Lawrence Bragg enabled further innovation.

Synthetic methods

Given the diversity of solid state compounds, an equally diverse array of methods are used for their preparation. For organic materials, such as charge transfer salts, the methods operate near room temperature and are often similar to the techniques of organic synthesis. Redox reactions are sometimes conducted by electrocrystallisation, as illustrated by the preparation of the Bechgaard salts from tetrathiafulvalene.
For thermally robust materials, high temperature methods are often employed. For example, bulk solids are prepared using tube furnaces, which allow reactions to be conducted up to ca. 800 °C. Such high temperatures are required to induce diffusion of the reactants. Solids can be crystallized using Chemical transport reactions.
Chemical vapor deposition is a high temperature method that is widely employed for the preparation of coatings and semiconductors from molecular precursors.