The structure of liquid tetrachlorides CCl4, SiCl4, GeCl4, TiCl4, VCl4, and SnCl4

Neutron diffraction measurements have been carried out for determining the total structure factor of liquid CCl4, SiCl4, GeCl4, TiCl4, VCl4, and SnCl4. The data were interpreted using the reverse Monte Carlo method, where the procedure started from results of molecular dynamics calculations. It is demonstrated that simple repulsive interatomic potential models are suitable for describing the most important structural features qualitatively. Based on detailed analyses of particle configurations, it is shown that “corner-to-face” type near-neighbor arrangements, that have been promoted for the interpretation of these structures over the last 20 years, are actually very rare, their occurrence being around 5% only. Instead, the dominance of “corner-to-corner” type orientational correlations is found.