You are currently viewing the summary.
View Full TextLog in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
More options
Download and print this article for your personal scholarly, research, and educational use.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.
Summary
The halogen group elements (F, Cl, Br, I, and At) are, in the words of the late Oliver Sacks, “the absolute opposite of the inert gases” (1). They are highly electronegative, that is, they strongly attract electrons, making them extremely reactive and even toxic. As a constituent atom in a molecule or complex, halogens therefore tend to be negatively charged. Yet, halogen atoms in molecules can attract other negatively charged species via a noncovalent interaction known as halogen bonding. Somewhat analogous to a hydrogen bond, the halogen bond (2) arises from an emergent electrophilic region on a molecule's constituent halogen atom, allowing it to attract a net negatively charged species on the same molecule or on a neighboring molecule (3). On page 206 of this issue, Han et al. report images of halogen bonding at atomic resolution (4).
This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License.
