The Auger parameter, polarization energies and electronegativities: Application to a series of non‐conducting barium slats

By use of the Auger parameter, we show that barium in a series of halogen and chalcogenide slats presents chemically distinct and identifiable states. Differences between Auger parameters are related to the ligand environment and can be used to obtain information on extra‐atomic relaxation, at lest some of which is non‐local in origin in this series of barium slats. As has previously been demonstrated by Moretti, non‐local contributions to the extra‐atomic relaxation correlate directly with nearest‐neighbor anion polarization energies. However, polarization energies are easily calculable only for simple distributions of identical ligands. We present an alternative correlation between the Auger parameter and electronegativity, which can easily be performed regardless of structural complications and which shows a high degree of precision.