The chalcogens react with each other to form interchalcogen compounds.[1]
Although no chalcogen is extremely electropositive,[note 1] nor quite as electronegative as the halogen fluorine (the most electronegative element), there is a large difference in electronegativity between the top (oxygen = 3.44 — the second most electronegative element after fluorine) and bottom (polonium = 2.0) of the group. Combined with the fact that there is a significant trend towards increasing metallic behaviour while descending the group (oxygen is a gaseous nonmetal, while polonium is a silvery post-transition metal[note 2]), this causes the interchalcogens to display many different kinds of bonding: covalent, ionic, metallic, and semimetallic.[note 3][1]
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