Guided tour and worksheet related to Solid State structure web site (R. Scarrow, Haverford College)

Directions: either print out this document, or position it in a window so you can see it and the main two-frame window entitled "Solid State Structures using CHIME". (if this window isn't open, you may open it by clicking here; but be careful because errors occur if you have two open copies of this window).

The table of contents includes a bulleted list of about 10 different topics. Clicking on any of these will put a new page in the right frame. Each of these topical pages has the following features that you should know about:

• Near the top is a checkbox labelled "CLICK HERE FIRST" (or something similar). You must click on this to load the atomic coordinates into the CHIME window on the left side.
• When you click on a box (such as the CLICK HERE FIRST box) an X will appear in the box. Click again and the X goes away. However, in almost all cases what happens when you click the box is unaffected by whether the box has an X in it or not (i.e. the checkboxes behaves like buttons).
• Toward the bottom is a button labelled "CONTENTS". Use this (or your browser's BACK button) to get back to the table of contents.
• The font control buttons (grey triangles pointing up or down) will control font size in the right window (except within tables) if you are using a Macintosh computer.

Start by clicking on the Introduction to Cubic Lattices, and click the "CLICK HERE FIRST" box. You should see a cube of pink atoms (polonium atoms) rotating on the screen. Rotation may be stopped and started using the CHIME menu (one way to get to this menu is by clicking on the MDL symbol in the lower right of the CHIME window).

The initial view is a "ball and stick" model, in which balls represent atoms and sticks represent bonds. The bonds in polonium are usually classified as metallic. The eight atoms shown in the initial view are at the corners of the crystallographic unit cell; this is the repeating unit in the structure (for more on unit cells, see www.haverford.edu/chem/scarrow/genchem/inorganic/solids/unitcells)

(Note: this worksheet is a work in progress - check back later).