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Coverage For some time, we have contemplated a comprehensive review of the structures and force fields of the binary fluorides. This bibliography of 1498 references marks the first step of that effort. We are pub lishing this material now rather than waiting until the review is complete some two years hence because we believe that the information already accumulated will be of immediate use to a broad spectrum of researchers. Anyone ambitious enough to read through all the articles on binary fluorides will find that the struc tures and force fields of many of these molecules are at present unknown. For example, it has not been clearly established to which point group(s) the lanthanide trifluorides should be assigned. There remain interesting problems relating to the role of Jahn-Teller and pseudo-Jahn-Teller distortions in some of the transition metal fluorides such as VF , MoF , ReF , and ReF , to name only a few. One s s 6 7 also finds fascinating examples of large-amplitude motions, or pseudorotations, as they are often called, in such molecules as XeF 6, I F 7, and PF 5´ For those binary fluorides whose equilibrium geometries are precisely known, there still exists the problem of accurately determining the harmonic force field. In a few cases, most notably the Group VA trifluorides, there has been some attempt made at extracting the cubic and quartic contributions to the force field.

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