Estimation of properties of rare-gas solids from compression characteristics of closed-shell ions

Abstract

The authors present a unified approach to repulsion in ionic and van der Waals solids based on a compressible-ion/atom model. Earlier studies have shown that repulsion in ionic crystals can be viewed as arising from the compression energy of ions, described by two parameters per ion. Here they obtain the compression parameters of the rare-gas atoms Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe by interpolation using the known parameters of related equi-electronic ions (e.g. Ar from S2-, Cl-, K+ and Ca2-). These parameters fit the experimental zero-temperature interatomic distances and compressibilities of the rare-gas crystals satisfactorily. At high-temperature equation of state based on an Einstein model of thermal motions is used to calculate the thermal expansivities, compressibilities and their temperature derivatives for Ar, Kr and Xe. It is argued that an instability at higher temperatures represents the limit to which the solid can be superheated, beyond which sublimation must occur.