Pressure is a very effective tool for exploring fundamental chemistry. The covalency of the mid to late actinides is of ambiguous origin, and proper modeling of actinide compounds requires accurate understanding of their bonding properties. Using high pressures to tune bond distances we can tease out the origins of covalency in the actinides, which seems to have significant influences from both orbital overlap and energy degeneracy. A diamond anvil cell has been used to examine the structural and spectroscopic effects of pressure on complexes of the lanthanides and actinides. A focus will be placed on the fluorescence and absorbance spectra. The sensitivity of these spectra to pressure should increase with increasing covalent bonding character to the metal centers.

Explorations of high-pressure behavior of lanthanide and actinide complexes

2019 Spring National Meeting

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