Question

Short note on crystal field theory of coordination compounds

Answer 1

At almost exactly the same time that chemists were developing the valence-bond model for coordination complexes, physicists such as Hans Bethe, John Van Vleck, and Leslie Orgel were developing an alternative known as crystal field theory. This theory tried to describe the effect of the electrical field of neighboring ions on the energies of the valence orbitals of an ion in a crystal. Crystal field theory was developed by considering two compounds: manganese(II) oxide, MnO, and copper(I) chloride, CuCl.