Transition metal-containing nitridophosphates and nitridosilicatephosphates pre-characterized by TEM

Nitridic compounds with mixed cations are a highly diverse class of compounds. They feature immense structural diversity and intriguing properties such as thermal and chemical stability and ionic conductivity. However, extreme reaction conditions which are conditional to their synthesis yield microcrystalline samples and structural analysis is challenging. Ta8PN15 with the rare motif of PN6 octahedra was successfully investigated at ID11. Further syntheses now afforded TM-nitridophosphates (TM = Ta, Mn, Cr, V) and according to powder patterns, TM-nitridosilicatephosphates (TM = Cr, Mn) are the first nitridic amphiboles. In all these cases, electron diffraction can identify new compounds but the combination of TEM and synchrotron diffraction from micron-sized crystallites outperforms electron crystallography or powder diffraction by far. This investigation will extend this field towards the chemistry of transition metal compounds with promising properties and rare structural motifs.