John B. Goodenough’s Role in Solid State Chemistry Community: A Thrilling Scientific Tale Told by a French Chemist

Abstract

In this tribute to John B. Goodenough I will describe how John’s talk on the metal-to-nonmetal transition of vanadium oxide VO2, presented at the Bordeaux Conference (September 1964) attended by inorganic chemists, metallurgists, crystallographers, thermodynamicists and physicists, provided a pioneering vision of interdisciplinary research to come. John gave a complete description of the paradigm on how the physical properties of a solid depend on its structure and bonding, by employing the chemical notions as local distortions and interatomic distances as well as the physics notions such as band width and the Hubbard on-site repulsion U. I will illustrate how inspiring John’s ideas were, by discussing the research examples of my own research group in the sixties-seventies. The fundamental approach of John B. Goodenough to Solid State Chemistry, leading particularly to lithium battery applications, is at the heart of the 2019 Nobel Prize awarded to John.

In Honor of John Bannister Goodenough, an Outstanding Visionary

“…After the introduction by Michel Pouchard [1] that spotlights the outstanding contributions of Professor John B. Goodenough to solid-state chemistry, this Special Issue consists of 14 contributions representing two areas of research John worked on, namely, nine contributions on lithium-ion batteries and five on magnetic properties.…”

Perspective—Multinary Oxide Semiconductors for Solar Fuels Generation: Closing the Performance Gap between Theory and Practice

“…While the breadth and scope of John B. Goodenough's contributions to solid state chemistry and energy conversion are truly mindboggling, his early career was studded with accomplishments in the understanding of electron transport and chemical bonding in transition metal oxides including ternary oxides of the perovskite type. 1 This Perspective deals with such compounds developed for possible applicability in the storage of solar energy via chemical bonds and fuels (e.g., hydrogen). Indeed, it is worth noting that Prof. Goodenough also made pioneering contributions in this area during his tenure at Oxford University in the 1980s.…”