Title: ligand field
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - ligand field
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.LT06764
Status: current

Definition
Ligand field theory is a modified crystal field theory that assigns certain parameters as variables rather than taking them as equal to the values found for free ions, thereby taking into account the potential covalent character of the metal-ligand bond.

Related Term
- crystal field: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/CT06770

Source
- PAC, 1997, 69, 1251. 'Glossary of terms used in bioinorganic chemistry (IUPAC Recommendations 1997)' on page 1283 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199769061251)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/LT06764/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/LT06764/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/LT06764/xml

Citation: Citation: 'ligand field' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.LT06764
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Accessed: 2026-05-10T01:07:23+00:00