Variation of Atomic Radii as a Function of Pressure: A Theoretical Study

Abstract

In the presence of pressure, interesting chemical events can happen, including the synthesis of unexpected compounds and the development of abnormal crystal structures. Often, these events have no logical explanation, and there are no chemical laws or models that can predict them. Research is active in the genesis of chemical events under pressure. Significance of the size of an atom and atomic electronegativity in determining the nature of the chemical reactivity of a species is well known. In this work, we have explored the inverse relationship between electronegativity and radius to compute a set of atomic radii as a function of pressure. In terms of computation of internuclear bond distances of some molecules, the reliability of the newly proposed scale is further analyzed. The results corroborate the experimental trend and justify the significance of pressure in reference to chemical phenomena.