Crystal structures of cristobalite-type and coesite-type PON redetermined on the basis of single-crystal X-ray diffraction data

Abstract

Hitherto, phosphorus oxonitride (PON) could not be obtained in the form of single crystals and only powder diffraction experiments were feasible for structure studies. In the present work we have synthesized two polymorphs of phosphorus oxonitride, cristobalite-type (cri-PON) and coesite-type (coe-PON), in the form of single crystals and reinvestigated their crystal structures by means of in house and synchrotron single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The crystal structures ofcri-PON andcoe-PON are built from PO2N2tetrahedral units, each with a statistical distribution of oxygen and nitrogen atoms. The crystal structure of thecoe-PON phase has the space groupC2/cwith seven atomic sites in the asymmetric unit [two P and three (N,O) sites on general positions, one (N,O) site on an inversion centre and one (N,O) site on a twofold rotation axis], while thecri-PON phase possesses tetragonalI-42dsymmetry with two independent atoms in the asymmetric unit [the P atom on a fourfold inversion axis and the (N,O) site on a twofold rotation axis]. In comparison with previous structure determinations from powder data, all atoms were refined with anisotropic displacement parameters, leading to higher precision in terms of bond lengths and angles.