Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A comparative structural study of UF4 and UO2, using extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) and x-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) techniques was conducted as part of the studies of 5f covalency in uranium compounds. This study confirmed the quality of the samples and provided additional insight into geometrical issues related to ionicity and covalency. It was observed that the local structure of UF4 from EXAFS was consistent with the long range structure derived from diffraction data.