Evolution of the periodic table through the synthesis of new elements

Abstract

Abstract This brief introduction to the synthesis and chemistry of elements discovered since 1940 is focused primarily on Z=93–118. The goal of this work is not to simply catalogue the nuclear fusion reactions needed to prepare new elements, but rather to focus on the chemical and physical properties that these elements possess. These elements share a single common feature in that they all have large Z values, and thus have electronic structures that are significantly altered by both scalar relativistic effects and spin-orbit coupling. These effects scale nonlinearly with increasing Z and create unexpected deviations both across series and down groups of elements. The magnitude of these effects is large enough that orbital energies rearrange and mix in ways that complicate incomplete depictions of electronic structure that are based solely on electron repulsion. Thus, the primary aim of this review is to document the impact of relativistic effects on electronic structure and how this has altered not just our understanding of the chemistry of heavy elements, but has even created in the need to rearrange the Periodic Table itself.