THE GEOMETRY OF THE ALKALINE EARTH DIHALIDES

Abstract

“It has been shown by the deflection of beams of alkaline earth dihalide molecules by inhomogeneous-electric fields that the following species have permanent electric dipole moments and are therefore assumed bent $BaF_{2}, BaCl_{2},\\ BaBr_{2}, BaI_{2}, SrF_{2}, SrCl_{2}, CaF_{2}$. No polarity was observed for the following species investigated: $CaCl_{2}, CaBr_{2}, SrBr_{2}, SrI_{2}$. The absence of deflection of beams of $BaCl_{2}$ by inhomogeneous magnetic fields shows that this molecule has no electronic magnetic moment and hence is in a singlet ground state.”