Materials Data on Al3P by Materials Project

Al3P is beta Cu3Ti-like structured and crystallizes in the hexagonal P6_3/mmc space group. The structure is three-dimensional. Al is bonded to eight equivalent Al and four equivalent P atoms to form distorted AlAl8P4 cuboctahedra that share corners with four equivalent PAl12 cuboctahedra, corners with fourteen equivalent AlAl8P4 cuboctahedra, edges with six equivalent PAl12 cuboctahedra, edges with twelve equivalent AlAl8P4 cuboctahedra, faces with four equivalent PAl12 cuboctahedra, and faces with sixteen equivalent AlAl8P4 cuboctahedra. There are a spread of Al–Al bond distances ranging from 2.77–2.89 Å. There are two shorter (2.81 Å) and two longer (2.87 Å) Al–P bond lengths. P is bonded to twelve equivalent Al atoms to form PAl12 cuboctahedra that share corners with six equivalent PAl12 cuboctahedra, corners with twelve equivalent AlAl8P4 cuboctahedra, edges with eighteen equivalent AlAl8P4 cuboctahedra, faces with eight equivalent PAl12 cuboctahedra, and faces with twelve equivalent AlAl8P4 cuboctahedra.