Inside Back Cover: The HgF₂ Ionic Switch: A Triumph of Electrostatics against Relativistic Odds (Chem. Eur. J. 47/2015)

Abstract

Evidence is provided for a transition from weak noncovalent interactions among HgF2 monomers to stronger polar covalent interactions in mercury difluoride clusters, (HgF2)n, as the size of the cluster (the value of n) increases. This transition—the so‐called “ionic switch” that was predicted in an earlier article in this journal—is explained as a triumph of electrostatic interactions (which favor short and strong bonds) against the rigidity imposed on mercury dihalide molecules by relativistic effects in Hg. The observations afford some new insights into nucleation processes. The complete account can be found in the Full paper by K. J. Donald and colleagues on