Er17Ru6Te3: A highly condensed metal-rich ternary telluride

Er17Ru6Te3 is obtained from high-temperature solid-state reactions in tantalum ampoules. The structure according to single-crystal X-ray diffraction is monoclinic, C2/m (no. 12), Z=4, a=40.185(8) Å, b=3.9969(8) Å, c=16.037(3) Å, β=95.12(3)°, V=2565.5(9) Å3. The condensed structure consists of a complex intermetallic network of intergrown sheets of edge-sharing tetrakaidecahedra (tricapped trigonal prisms, TCTP), and pairs of rectangular-face-sharing bicapped trigonal prisms (BCTP) built of erbium and centered by ruthenium. This array also contains isolated columns of TCTP erbium normal to these sheets that contain tellurium. Basal face sharing of all Er polyhedra along the short b-axis gives rise to the three-dimensional network. Synthesis and the crystal structure of the compound are discussed.