American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science, 6405(361), p. 912-916, 2018
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Carbonyls in the s block Conventional wisdom in chemistry distinguishes transition metals from other elements by their use of d orbitals in bonding. Wu et al. now report that alkaline earth metals can slide their electrons from s- to d-orbital bonding motifs as well (see the Perspective by Armentrout). Calcium, strontium, and barium all form coordination complexes with a cubic arrangement of eight carbonyl ligands and an 18-electron valence shell. The compounds were characterized in frozen neon matrices by vibrational spectroscopy and in gas phase by mass spectrometry. Science , this issue p. 912 ; see also p. 849