Source of materialErbium, red phosphorus, and palladium were of 99.99 wt.-% purity. Amixture of the starting components with nominal composition Er 3 Pd 20 P 6 was pressed into asmall pellet (1 g) and melted in an arc furnace under aTi/Zr-gettered argon atmosphere at normal pressure. The alloy was heat-treated at 1070 Kfor 20 dinevacuated fused silica ampules, followed by quenching in cold water. After the sample was crushed, bar-likeair-stable single crystals with metallic luster were extracted and were for the structure determination. Energy-dispersive analysis of several crystals in a scanning electron microscope confirmed the presence of erbium, palladium,and phosphorus as the only components in atomic percentages of Er:Pd:P=11:68:21 (with estimated standard deviations of 2%).
DiscussionEr 3 Pd 20P 6 adopts the Cr 23C 6 -type structure (Pearson symbol cF116) [1], which is built up of fragments of columnsofcuboctahedra ( figure, top), two tetragonal antiprisms, and cubes (figure, middle). The Eratoms substitute for the transition metals in sites 4 a and 8 c .The Patoms have tetragonal antiprismatic coordination ( figure, bottom). The shortesti nteratomic distance found ( d (Pd1-P)=235.6(2) pm) is by <5%smaller than the sumof atomic radii. Because of the low rare-earth content, the Eratoms remain isolated, and interatomic distances to them are larger than the sum of atomic radii. The greatest contraction (9.4 %) occurs for the Er2-Pd2 distance of 281.95(5)p m, indicating that the bonding between Erand Pdatoms is probably stronger than that between Pdand P,orErand P.Er 3 Pd 20 P 6 is paramagnetic and its susceptibility followsthe Curie-Weiss law.