The Vibrational Spectra of some Tetrachlorides in Rare Gas Matrices with particular Reference to the Molecular Shapes of ThCl4 and UCl4

Article abstract of DOI:10.1039/DT9840000819

Infrared spectra of tin, lead, hafnium, thorium, and uranium tetrachlorides isolated in inert gas matrices are reported.The results obtained for the tin, lead, and hafnium compounds follow the expected isotope patterns for a tetrahedral molecule except for the observation of additional weak features to high frequency of the all-35Cl isotopomers.By contrast for the thorium tetrachloride the observed spectrum is not characteristic of a T_d molecule but can be fitted to a species with C_2ν symmetry.Similar results (altough less detailed) were obtained for uranium tetrachloride.