Probing Multiconfigurational States by Spectroscopy: The Cerium XAS L3‐edge Puzzle

Abstract Invited for the cover of this issue are Prof. Jochen Autschbach and Dr. Dumitru‐Claudiu Sergentu of State University of New York at Buffalo, and Dr. Corwin H. Booth of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The image depicts high‐energy X‐ray beams as lightnings probing Ce at the L 3 edge in the iconic covalent‐bonded Ce(C 8 H 8 ) 2 and in CeO 2 . The mountain peaks in the background represent the double‐peaked L 3 edges. The peaks turn out to be intuitively interpreted in terms of localized orbitals and hence metal oxidation states. Read the full text of the article at 10.1002/chem.202100145 .