Ultimate Ionic Radii

Ionic strength influences are well known with respect to the rate and energetics of nucleic acid hybridization [17]. Charge and ionic radius are both important in terms of stabilizing the structure of the duplex as well as stabilizing the stem portion of the molecular beacon [17]. The stem structure stability was increased when a divalent cation was incorporated into the hybridization buffer solution [17]. It was reported that cations were best at stabilizing the duplex formed upon hybridization in the order Ca2+ > Mg2+ K+ > Na+. The ultimate detection limit of the sensor configuration was calculated to be 1.1 nM [17]. 

The experimentally measured anion-cation distances in highly ionic solids can be interpreted on the assumption that each ion has a nearly fixed radius. For example, the difference in anion-cation distance between the halides NaX and KX is close to 36 pm irrespective of the anion X, and it is natural to attribute this to the difference in radii between Na+ and K+. To separate the observed distances into the sum of two ionic radii is, however, difficult to do in an entirely satisfactory way. One procedure is to look for the minimum value in the electron density distribution between neighboring ions, but apart from the experimental difficulties involved such measurements do not really support the assumption of constant radius. Sets of ionic radii are therefore all based ultimately on somewhat arbitrary assumptions. Several different sets have been derived, the most widely used being those of Shannon and Prewitt, based on the assumed radius of 140 pm for O in six-coordination. Values for a selection of ions are shown in Table 1. 

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