Basic StructuresOf the 101 compounds which are listed in Landolt-Bornstein [IJ or Wyckoff [2J as having layer like structures related to those of cadmium iodide, cadmium chloride or molybdenum disulphide, thirty are dichalcogenides, i.e. metallic disulphides, diselenides or ditellurides. They comprise the compounds listed in Table 1. The remainder essentially are the di-halides and di-hydroxides of the same metals.Tubbs [3J has reviewed the optical properties and chemical decomposition of halides with layer structures, and the structural, optical and electronic properties of the transition metal dichalcogenides are extensively reviewed by Wilson and Y offe [4J. A description of the preparation and properties of some of the Group IV-VI2 chalcogenides having the cadmium iodide layer structure has been given by Greenaway and Nitsche [5J.Wyckoff distinguishes between the cadmium iodide structure and the cadmium chloride structure; the cadmium iodide structure has an hexagonal unit cell containing a single molecule, with cations at special positions (0,0,0) and anions at positions (1, t, u) and (t,1, -u) of space-group P3ml, where u is approximately t; the cadmium chloride structure is described as having a rhombohedral unit cell containing a single molecule, with the cations at special positions (0,0,0) and the anions at the points (u, u, u) and (-u, -u, -u) of space-group R3m.