The crystal chemistry of L-Ta2O5 and related structures

Single crystals of a new form of L-Ta2O5 with a 19×b superstructure have been synthesised by flux growth. The phase is most likely stabilised by the incorporation of a small amount of lithium (0.14 wt% Li) from the flux. The phase has C-centred monoclinic symmetry with image, image (image), image, image. The structure was refined in space group image to image for 814 unique reflections with image. The structure can be described as comprising chains of edge-shared TaO7 pentagonal bipyramids that are regularly folded at (010) planes to give sinusoidal chains along [010]. These chains are interconnected along [100] and [001] by corner sharing, creating inter-chain regions that are occupied by isolated TaO6 octahedra and pairs of corner-shared octahedra. A comparison with published data for high-quality refinements of related structures has led to the development of a general model that can explain the structural chemistry variations in the known L-Ta2O5-related structures. A shorthand notation is presented for representing the structures, based on the sequence along [010] of the interchain octahedra.