A simple geometrical path towards hybrid orbitals

Abstract

It is shown that the standard sp n hybrid orbitals are orthogonal orbitals that minimize the total quadratic spread. This is done in a concise way that may improve the understanding of hybrid orbitals. The fact that maximally localized Wannier functions of crystalline materials may resemble hybrid orbitals is discussed.

Keywords

• hybrid orbitals
• localization
• Wannier functions