Abstract
Relativistic effects strongly influence the chemical and physical properties of the heaviest elements, which can significantly differ from the periodicity predicted by the periodic table of elements. Former systematic mobility measurements on monoatomic lanthanide ions revealed the dependence of ion-atom interactions on the underlying electronic configuration and helped in studying the aforementioned effects. Presently, the measurements are being extended to the actinides, where larger deviations from periodicity are expected. Our studies will cover ion mobilities of several actinide elements under different conditions of electric fields, buffer-gas pressures and temperatures, which will constitute benchmark data for state-of-the-art ab initio calculations.
Highlights
With the search for the proposed island of stability and the discovery of new chemical elements, a new niche for chemical and physical exploration of superheavy elements opened up [1, 2]
We present systematic Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS) studies in the lanthanides and ongoing work to extend them to the heavier actinides
Feasibility studies for the pairs (Fm+, Cf+) and (Am+, Pu+) drifting in argon were reported in Ref. [24, 25]. Since these studies were prone to large systematic uncertainties, we anticipate systematic IMS measurements across the heaviest actinide elements to deepen the understanding of mobility changes in the actinide region
Summary
With the search for the proposed island of stability and the discovery of new chemical elements, a new niche for chemical and physical exploration of superheavy elements opened up [1, 2]. Of particular interest in chemistry are relativistic effects, which gain importance with increasing atomic number Z [3]. The resulting effective shielding of the nuclear potential influences the binding energy of the electrons, the valence electron configuration, interatomic forces, bond lengths, enthalpies, and the chemical behavior altogether. Gas phase chemistry with single atoms is the most advanced method to study the chemical properties of the superheavy elements. This article is part of the Topical Collection on Proceedings of PLATAN 2019, 1st International Conference, Merger of the Poznan Meeting on Lasers and Trapping Devices in Atomic Nuclei Research and the International Conference on Laser Probing, Mainz, Germany 19-24 May 2019 Edited by Krassimira Marinova, Michael Block, Klaus D.A. Wendt and Magdalena Kowalska. Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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