... chain of atoms such as in polyacetylene. Assume a row of N atoms separated by a distance d, so the total length of the chain is (N-1)d or, for large N, approximately Nd. According to the quantum-mechanical model for a free particle in a onedimensional box (potential zero inside the box and infinity outside) the wave functions (Figure 6) correspond to a ladder of eigenvalues En ... 1,2, 3 , (4) where h is Planck's constant, m the electron mass and n a quantum number. If we assume that the electrons from the N p-orbitals are filled into this ladder, with two electrons per molecular orbit...

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