Effects of atomic polarization in ionic crystals

Abstract

The effect of higher order atomic polarizations on the cohesive energy of ionic crystals is treated on the basis of a model according to which the crystal consists of polarizable non-overlapping electrostatic charge distributions. By means of methods developed in previous papers, the multipoles induced in the atoms by the crystalline field are calculated in a self-consistent way. A general formula for the effect of these polarizations on the cohesive energy of ionic crystals is derived and numerically evaluated for the crystals of KCl, KI, CsCl and CsI.