From molecular crystals and organic polymers to chemisorption processes: Importance of local interactions

Some aspects of studies on organic solids, polymers, and solid surfaces are discussed in connection with the suggestion that local interactions can constitute an important common feature of these quite different systems, which allows a common treatment of certain properties in cluster-type calculations. The examples of molecular crystals, of the influence of different side groups bound to the backbone of a regular polypeptide, and of the interactions of fluorine and chlorine atoms with a silicon surface are treated in order to illustrate this thesis, with special emphasis on the reduction of a variety of bonding situations to local interactions rather than on details of computations.