Preparation, properties, and structure refinement of the stacking variant 2-MnP 4

Abstract

Crystals of the title compound can be prepared by the tin flux technique or by chemical transport with iodine. They are usually twinned but their crystal structure was refined from single crystal X-ray data. It represents a 2-layer stacking variant of the previously reported modifications 8-MnP 4 and 6-MnP 4. The near-neighbor environments of the three modifications are very similar and can be rationalized with conventional covalent two-electron bonds. In agreement with this interpretation all three modifications are diamagnetic semiconductors.