Long range couplings of CH/sub 2/S--SCH/sub 3/ radicals trapped in dimethyldisulfide single crystals

The main radical produced in single crystals of dimethyldisulfide by irradiation with ..gamma.. rays at 77 K and bleaching by daylight is CH/sub 2/SSCH/sub 3/. The coupling tensors of the protons have been determined. It arises from the experimental results that the electronic configuration about the radical center is planar. There is an unusually large spin density on the H/sub CH3/ protons coming from a delocalization of the unpaired spin density over S--S bond. Fair agreement is found between ab initio UHFMO calculations and experiment.