MTSE 3010

Materials Science and Engineering 3010

(Bonding and Structure)

What is Materials Science and

Engineering (MSE)?
• In general, MSE bridges disciplines of applied physics, chemistry, and
engineering. The science of materials helps you to understand the
fundamental structure-property relations in materials, while the
engineering of materials enables you to learn how to process materials and
determine the properties of the finished product.
• Materials Scientists and Engineers are specialists who are totally involved
in the investigation and design of materials. 1
 Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) –
Multidisciplinary Field
The study of MSE is about •There are many facets of structure and purpose
interrelationships : of this course is to put them into perspective.
Structure
•Fundamental building blocks of materials are
atoms and the chemical interactions, resulting in
the formation of bonds that derive from the
electronic structure of atoms, which play a
critical role in determining the structure and
Processing properties of materials.
Properties •This tendency of atoms to bond to one another
gives rise to the condensed phases of matter –
liquids, crystals, glasses, etc.
Performance •Materials with the same chemical composition
but different structures often have different
properties, example of Al2O3 (on left)
•Thus, we need to understand not only what
materials are made of, but also how their
constituents (atoms, ions or molecules) are
arranged in order to understand the properties of
Optical transmittance materials. 2
Image from W.D. Callister, Fundamentals of MSE, p.4
 Types of Materials
• Metals: Metallic bonding  non-directional sharing of electrons giving structures
of very high coordination and high density.
– Composed of one or more (alloys) metallic elements (e.g. Ti, Al, Ni, Cr) and often also
nonmetallic elements (e.g. C, N, O) in small amounts.
– In general, have high strength, ductility (capable of large amounts of deformation without
fracture), and fracture toughness
– In general, high thermal & electrical conductivity (conduction by electron transport),
opaque, reflective.

• Ceramics: Mixed Ionic bonding (most)  non-directional transfer of electrons

giving structures of high coordination and Covalent bonding (some)  directional
sharing of electrons giving structures of low coordination and low density.
– Compounds of metallic & non-metallic elements (oxides, carbides, nitrides, chlorides, ...)
– Strong, elastic/stiff, hard yet they are often brittle (lack ductility), glassy.
– Non-conducting (insulators) with very high heat resistance (refractory).

• Intermetallics: Mixed metallic and ionic/covalent bonding

– Compounds of metallic & metalloid elements (e.g., silicides like MoSi2)
– Compromise between ceramic and metallic properties: brittle and high melting, but have 3
some toughness due to metallicity.
 Types of Materials (continued)

• Polymers/plastics: Covalent bonding in the chain and secondary bonding

(e.g., VDW) between the chains
– Organic compounds based on carbon, hydrogen and other non-metallic elements (e.g. O,
N and Si). Very large molecular structures.
– Soft, ductile (easily formed into complex shapes), low strength, low density
– non-conducting (insulators) with low heat resistance

• Electronic materials (semiconductors) : Mixed Ionic (some) and

Covalent bonding (most)
– Conductivity between metals and ceramics/polymers.

• Composites

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 Course Objectives
You will learn about:
 Structure of materials at different size/length scales:
1. Electronic structure
2. Atomic structure
3. Crystal structure (crystallography)
4. Nano/Micro structure
5. Macrostructure
 How these structures may dictate material properties
This course will help you to:
 Classify, characterize and use materials properly
 Realize new design opportunities with materials

*MAKE SURE YOU KNOW CHAPTERS 2 (ATOMIC STRUCTURE &

BONDING) AND 3 (CRYSTAL STRUCTURE) IN INTRODUCTION TO
MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING BOOK, e.g. CALLISTER.
*ENGR 3450 (ENGINEERING MATERIALS) IS A PRE-REQUISITE
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 What does Structure of Materials Mean?
•The structure of materials concerns the quantitative description of the arrangements of
the components that make up the material on all relevant length scales.

•The atoms in a material can be bound to one another in a great variety of ways, and
often knowledge of some details about the arrangements in a small grouping of just a
few atoms can provide useful structural descriptors.
•A descriptor provides a precise quantitative characterization of some aspect of
structure.

•For such a group we will use generic term, polyatomic ensemble, which can take many
forms:

•To characterize impurities/defects in material, since real materials rarely have

homogeneous/perfect structures, it is useful to know their average concentration and
average relative separation distance (averaging over small volumes) rather than to know
the precise location of each impurity.
•Compositional inhomogeneities may be deliberately introduced to provide a
particular functionality of the material… 6
 Structure has many dimensions
Materials Science - bridging across length scales

200 mm

Structural feature Dimension (m)

atomic bonding < 10 -10

100 nm
missing/extra atoms 10 -10

crystals (ordered atoms) 10 -8 -10 -1

second phase particles 10 -8 -10 -4

crystal texturing > 10 -6 1 nm
 Different Approaches

From Professor Michael Ashby, University of Cambridge, UK.

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 Crystalline Structural Descriptors
•If a material is crystalline, descriptors based on theory of crystallography can be used to
quantify the crystal structure, i.e. kind of average, ideal reference state combined with number,
type and distribution of imperfections.

NaCl (rock NaCl

salt) Structure unit
cell

Atoms are arranged in a cubic array (pink – Na+,

white – Cl-).
•~100,000 of these cells stacked side by side
would equal the diameter of a common human
hair
•These structural features of the average environment around each atom are quantifiable and
constitute long-range order (LRO), which is the major structural descriptor for specifying the
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structure of crystalline materials.
 Non-Crystalline Structural Descriptors
•If a material is non-crystalline, there is no ideal reference state for comparison with the real
structure, thus more difficult to quantify.

•A portion of a 2-D continuous random network structure of a compound with formula A2B3:

Fig. A 2-D continuous random

network structure in a
stoichiometric A2B3 compound.

•This structure is non-crystalline because it lacks spatial periodicity.

•However, the structure is not completely random, since each A atom is bonded to three B atoms
and each B atom is bonded to two A atoms. Also, there is a characteristic distance between A-B
separation (bond length) and the angles formed by the A-B-A and B-A-B bonds fall within a
narrow range.

•These structural features of the average environment around each atom are quantifiable and
constitute short-range order (SRO), which is the major descriptor for specifying the structure of
non-crystalline (amorphous) materials, such as glass. 10
 Example of LRO and SRO

SiO2-FeCSRO

Si LRO

Porous SiO2-FeC film

(amorphous) on single
crystal Si wafer

MFET 3450 Transmission electron

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microscope (TEM) image
Materials are not always perfectly
ordered arrays of atom or ions
Polycrystalline ZnO thin film

O2-

Zn2+

Planar stacking faults (2-D

area defect) “denoted by
arrows”  missing or extra
row of ions in the lattice.
- An interfacial defect that exists within
above ZnO hexagonal closed packed
(HCP) stacking sequence disruption in
lattice.

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 Materials are not always perfectly
ordered arrays of atom or ions
Polycrystalline ZnO thin film
Zoom in on box from previous page:

Edge dislocations (1-D

line defect) “denoted by
arrow”

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 Introduction to Bonding

•The physical and chemical properties of materials are strongly influenced by the interatomic
bonds and thus by the outermost valence electrons.

•Elusive goal of structural chemistry is the determination of a material’s structure from

knowledge of its constituents’ chemical bonding.

•The primary reason for a general lack of a predictive theory of structure is that the bonding
between atoms is extremely variable:
•Many examples in terms of structural state and bonding, e.g., TiCl2 (s) and TiCl4 (l)…..

•Thus, you must be careful in assigning a particular type of bonding to given atom/ion pairs and
the inadequacy in using stoichiometric formulas to predict material structures. 14
 Ground State Electron Configurations
of the Elements

ns2np6
Hybridization in carbon:
ns1

ns2np4
ns2np1
ns2np2
ns2np3

ns2np5
ns2

d10
d1

d5

•Hybridization is change from atomic orbitals to form new bonding orbitals (or hybrid orbitals).
tend to form hybrids (spn) where n=1,2,or 3
•The driving force for the formation of hybrid orbitals is a lower energy state for the valence e-’s
4f
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5f
 S and P Orbitals
•A 1s orbital may be considered as a spherical distribution of negative
S-orbital charge (electron cloud), which becomes more diffuse as the distance
from the nucleus increases.
•2s orbitals are similar in shape, but the radius of the electron cloud is
larger.
•ns2 configuration if electrons completely fill the s orbital.

•p-orbitals consist of electron clouds with a node at the nucleus of the

atom.
•There are three such orbitals, oriented at right angles to one another:

P-orbital

•np6 configuration if electrons completely fill the p orbital. 16

 Hybridization in Covalent Structures
•Hybridization is the change from atomic orbitals to form new bonding orbitals (hybrid orbitals).
•The driving force for the formation of hybrid orbitals is a lower energy state for the valence e-’s
•Covalently bonded structures:
•sharing of electrons by overlapping orbitals.
•highly directional: when a bond is formed, electron density is increased along a line
connecting the two bonding atoms.
•formed from atoms that have both s and p valence electrons available (elements on right
hand side of periodic table with relatively high electronegativities).
•the formation of sp hybrid orbitals results in 4 equivalent sp3 orbitals with same energy
directed towards the vertices of a tetrahedron
(occurs in group 4 atoms such as C (diamond),
Si, and Ge as well as SiC),the geometry of
these orbitals leads to the 4-fold coordination
of covalent structures.

Shaded circles represent neighboring 17

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atom positions.
 Diamond Cubic Crystal Structure

Examples:
C (diamond),
Si, & Ge
[tetrahedrally
-coordinated
structure]

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 Hybridization in Covalent Structures (cond.)
•The formation of pseudo-tetrahedral arrangements are found even when there are fewer than 4
nearest neighbors. In these cases the lone (non-bonding) pair of electrons complete the tetrahedron.
•For example hybridization in group 5 (P,As,Sb) and group 6 (S,Se,Te) atoms leads to 4 sp3
orbitals that have a tetrahedral arrangement, even though some of the ligands are non-bonding
lone pairs.
•Shaded circles
represent
neighboring atom
positons.
•Dots represent
electrons in lone
pair orbitals.

Phosphorous: Sulfur:

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