Molecular orbital theory
Teoría de orbitales moleculares
- Date
- 1928-1932 · confidence high
- Place
- University of Chicago (Mulliken) and Bristol (Lennard-Jones); Munich (Hund)
- Credited to
- Robert Mulliken, Friedrich Hund, John Lennard-Jones; Erich Hückel (aromaticity, 1931)
- People
- 👤 Erich Hückel1896–1980👤 Friedrich Hund1896–1997👤 John Lennard-Jones1894–1954👤 Robert S. Mulliken1896–1986
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
Electrons occupy delocalised orbitals that extend across the whole molecule, formed by the combination of atomic orbitals. It explains the paramagnetism of O2, Hückel's 4n+2 rule of aromaticity and electronic spectroscopy.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1966 (Mulliken).
What it led to
- Computational quantum chemistry
- Frontier orbital theory (Fukui)
- Woodward-Hoffmann rules
- Chemistry of conducting materials
Built on
- quantum mechanics
- molecular spectroscopy
Made possible
- Woodward-Hoffmann rules1965
- Ab initio computational chemistry (Pople, Gaussian)1970
- Conductive polymers1977
- Hartree-Fock and DFT methods
- design of organic semiconductors