The authors' aim is to present a review of experimental and theoretical research that has been done to establish and to explain the physical properties of actinide compounds. The book is aimed at physicists and chemists. It was thought useful to collect a large selection of diagrams of experimental data scattered in the literature. Experiment and theory are presented separately, with cross references. Not all work has been included: rather, typical examples are discussed. We apologize to all researchers whose work has not been quoted. Since we report on an active field of research, clearly the data and their interpretation are subject to change. We benefitted greatly from discussions with many of our colleagues, particularly with Drs. G. H. Lander and W. Suski. The help of Mrs. C. Bovey and Ch. Lewis in the preparation of the manuscript, and the artwork and photo graphic work of Ms. Y. Magnenat and E. Spielmann of the Institute of Experi mental Physics of the University of Lausanne, are gratefully acknowledged. Our particular thanks are due to Ms. J. Ubby for her skillful and patient editorial work.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. Survey of Experimental Data.- 2.1. Experimental Techniques.- 2.2. NaCl-Type Metallic Actinide Compounds.- 2.3. UX2-Type and UXY-Type Tetragonal Uranium Compounds.- 2.4. A3X4-Type Metallic Actinide Compounds.- 2.5. Intermetallic Actinide Compounds.- 2.6. Actinide Oxides.- 2.7. Actinide Halides.- 2.8. Other Compounds.- 2.9. Spectroscopic Data on Actinide Ions.- 3. Survey of Theory.- 3.1. Localized Electron Theories.- 3.2. Theories Involving Itinerant Electrons.- 3.3. A Theory Intermediate to the Localized and Band Models.- 3.4. Similarities between Mixed-Valence Rare Earths and Metallic Actinide Compounds.- Appendix A. Irreducible Tensor Operators.- Appendix B. Magnetic Structures.- References.- Author Index.