Electronic structure of some inorganic azides from x-ray electron spectroscopy

Abstract

The electronic structure of some inorganic azides has been investigated by x-ray electron spectroscopy for the purpose of contrasting the relative ionicities or degree of covalency of the alkali and heavy metal azides. Core and valence band electron spectra are presented along with deconvolutions of some of the overlapping bands. The splitting between the terminal N 1s band and the central N 1s band ΔEI for the inorganic azides has been found to be sensitive to the degree of ionicity of the respective compounds. This data when compared to some physical properties such as crystal structure, ionic radius, standard enthalpy of formation, lattice energy, and solubility provides evidence for a trend in ionicities. The observed trends indicate that the transition metal azides are considerably more covalent than the alkali or alkaline metal azides.