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Letter

Nature Materials 6, 44–47 (1 January 2007) | doi:10.1038/nmat1795

Hydrogen multicentre bonds

Anderson Janotti & Chris G. Van de Walle

The concept of a chemical bond stands out as a major development in the process of understanding how atoms are held together in molecules and solids. Lewis|[rsquo]| classical picture of chemical bonds as shared-electron pairs evolved to the quantum-mechanical valence-bond and molecular-orbital theories, and the classification of molecules and solids in terms of their bonding type: covalent, ionic, van der Waals and metallic.