ESO205A: Nature and Properties of Materials

Assignment 1

Due date: 9th August 2018 in the tutorial (No late or proxy submission)

• Reference: Chapter 4- Raghavan (sixth edition)

1. Give the electronic configuration of the fluorine atom and F- ion. Fluorine’s molecular single
bond covalent radius is 0.64 Å and F - radius is 1.17 Å. Explain the difference.

2. a) The attractive potential between two ions is WA= - A/r and the repulsive potential
WR=B/rn . Plot the attractive, repulsive and total energy as a function of inter-ionic distance.
Just below this graph, using common inter-ionic distance axis, also plot the attractive,
repulsive and net force, marking the point of equilibrium bond length, as applicable at 0K.
b) What is the bond length (R) and bond energy (Wo) in terms of A, B and n. Also, the inter
atomic distance is measurable, so sometimes it is useful to write bond energy in terms of
only A and n, along with known R. So do this algebra also.
c) Let’s get some sense of numbers. For KCl, A=1.436 and B=5.86x10-6 and n=9, when r is in
nm, the energy in eV corresponds to that of a pair. What is the bond length and bond
energy?

3. On the basis of the hydrogen bond, explain the anomalous behaviour of water when it
freezes. That is, why is there volume expansion upon solidification?

4. Calculate the Madelung’s constant for a prototype linear NaCl crystal.

5. The bonding characteristics of a material is given as W = - A/r + B/rn. Assuming the

equilibrium separation between bonding atoms to be 0.35 nm. Estimate the Young’s
modulus of this material. A = 8.5 X 10-29 Jm, n =8.