Oxide chemistry and catalysis

In many cases, metal oxides are semiconducting and exhibit strong absorption coefficients for visible light, making these materials attractive for applications in photocatalysis, solar energy conversion, and storage. The highly polar bonds in many metal oxides result in strong electron–phonon coupling, making it difficult to decouple the electronic and nuclear contributions to the wavefunction. This strong coupling gives rise to unique electrical and optical properties, which often dominate electron transport and significantly complicate excited state modeling. All these effects point to the need for chemical physics to provide a fundamental framework required to support the many promising applications of oxide chemistry and catalysis.