Chemistry Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [solid-state-chemistry]

Study of chemical species that are in solid phase, either in cases of their properties, or about ways of synthesizing them.

Relates to all chemical substance that are in the solid phase; especially non-molecular solid material. Questions including this tag can be about ways of synthesizing solid material through chemical or physical reactions, or properties concerning compounds that are in solid phase.

357 questions
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Will a solid object lose or gain atoms on standing over time (without being acted upon by external influences)?

Suppose I'm in my room with my keyboard, my desktop and my desk. Are these objects losing or gaining atoms every second? Or are they forever stuck with the same number of particles until you scratch, break or pulverize them? Or suppose, for…
Gabriele Scarlatti
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Are all lattices Bravais lattices?

Can all lattices be described as one of the fourteen Bravais lattices? Is the hexagonal close packed structure also one of the fourteen Bravais lattices?
Charles
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How can brass still be made even though the crystal structures of zinc and copper are not the same?

Based on the Hume-Rothery rules, to dissolve an element into a metal, the crystal structures for both must be the same. But the structure for zinc is HCP, whereas copper has FCC structure. It does not follow the rule. But why can brass still be…
Lemon Yyds
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What causes photovoltaic (solar) cells to degrade?

Photovoltaic panels can have 20 or 25 year underwritten warranties with a guaranteed remaining efficiency of 80 % of the new panel. That means, that photovoltaic panels seem to degrade somehow. Why do they degrade? What exactly is reducing their…
erik
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Why are p-type solar cells more prone to degradation in space than the n-type ones?

Why are p-type (boron doped substrate) solar cells more prone to degradation in space than n-type (phosphorus doped substrate)? All the sources I've looked at simply state it was found that p-type degrades slower, hence they were used for space…
user50488
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Distance between successive tetrahedral voids in FCC

What is the distance between successive tetrahedral voids in a FCC crystal structure? The distance between a face centered atom and a tetrahedral void is $\sqrt{\frac{3a}{4}}$ if the cube's edge length is $a$. Now If I know the angle made, between…
TESLA____
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How can diamond have a fixed refractive index?

I was doing a lesson on solid states. There were given two kinds of solids namely amorphous solids and crystalline solids. Some differences between these two solids were given in my book. One of the difference was that crystalline solids are…
Singh
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What is the (conceptual) difference between binding energy and adsorption energy?

I know the equations, but I have some difficulty getting the difference between the two concepts of binding energy and adsorption energy.
ziulfer
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ABC arrangement of FCC/CCP

I know that FCC shows ABC type but I am confused about it. For simple cubic and body centered, it is pretty easy to work out the packing arrangement but FCC is giving me a headache. What is this Wikipedia article trying to tell in the diagram and…
Hydrous Caperilla
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Why there exist no void with co-ordination number 5

Here oh = octahedral td = tetrahedral CN = co-ordination number My problem is that, that why it is not possible to have a void with CN = 5 ? My reasoning is: According to the definition of CN i.e. the number of nearest…
Singh
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Defects in crystalline structure

Starting from a perfect $\ce{MgO}$ crystal a solid solution of $\ce{Al2O3}$ and $\ce{MgO}$ is prepared with an atomic proportion of $15:85$ of $\ce{Al}:\ce{Mg}$. Knowing the number of vacancies per $\ce{Mg}$ atom is $0.088$, calculate the %…
Bee
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Is it possible to determine the age of a building by just looking at its window?

I've recently come across the fact that glass is an amorphous solid and is known as a pseudo solid or a super cooled liquid. Our teacher told us that buildings that if we were to closely observe the glass in the window panes, we would find that it's…
Berry Holmes
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Solid State - Radius Ratio rules

Why lithium salts crystallize in octahedral lattice , although radius ratio values are much below than expected ratio?
Shivay
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Voids vs Interstitial Site?

I am studying solids states. So we studied different lattices of Ionic solids by introducting smaller Cations into VOIDS. Next topic is of defects. SO it is written Frankel defect arises when a smaller cation (or anion) shifts from its lattice…
aman
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Number of particles at a distance of √11 (a/2) from a single particle in a body centered cubic lattice

Take a particle on BCC lattice and from that we have to find number of particles at a distance of $\displaystyle \sqrt{11} \cdot \frac{a}{2}$ (where a is side length of cube). For this, the answer that I saw somewhere gave 24 particles. However, I…
Anne
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