Compounds with Close-packed Atoms

Even though qualitative bonding descriptions of metal atom clusters up to six or seven atoms can be derived and in some cases correlated with structural detail, it is clear that most structures observed for higher clusters cannot be treated thus. Nor do the structures observed correlate with those observed for borane derivatives with the same number of vertices. Much of borane chemistry is dominated by the tendency to form structures derived from the icosahedron found in elemental boron. However, elemental transition metals possess either a close-packed or body-centered cubic arrangement. In this connection, one can find the vast majority of metal polyhedra in carbonyl cluster compounds within close-packed geometries, particularly hexagonal close-packing. 

Adam s results for three of the higher normal aldoximes are reproduced in the curve. The line AB, common to all three, closely resembles the usual line giving the compressibility of the hydrocarbon chains, though the somewhat greater value for the area, 21 8 A., at which it cuts the axis of area, may be due to some other form of packing. The lower part of the line has different though parallel courses for the compound with 16 carbon atoms and for those with 14 or 15 the lines BO and FD represent the more open type of packing which is determined by the area of the head, or soluble end, of the molecule. The area of the head when unconstrained is thus 25-4 A. for the lower and 1-... 

Simple metallic solids are elements or alloys with close-packed structures where the large number of interatomic overlaps gives rise to wide bands with no gaps between levels from different atomic orbitals. Metallic properties can arise, however, in other contexts. In transition metal compounds a partially occupied d shell can give rise to a partly filled band. Thus rhenium in Re03 has the formal... 

The defects which disrupt the regular patterns of crystals, can be classified into point defects (zero-dimensional), line defects (1-dimensional), planar (2-dimensional) and bulk defects (3-dimensional). Point defects are imperfections of the crystal lattice having dimensions of the order of the atomic size. The formation of point defects in solids was predicted by Frenkel [40], At high temperatures, the thermal motion of atoms becomes more intensive and some of atoms obtain energies sufficient to leave their lattice sites and occupy interstitial positions. In this case, a vacancy and an interstitial atom, the so-called Frenkel pair, appear simultaneously. A way to create only vacancies has been shown later by Wagner and Schottky [41] atoms leave their lattice sites and occupy free positions on the surface or at internal imperfections of the crystal (voids, grain boundaries, dislocations). Such vacancies are often called Schottky defects (Fig. 6.3). This mechanism dominates in solids with close-packed lattices where the formation of vacancies requires considerably smaller energies than that of interstitials. In ionic compounds also there are defects of two types, Frenkel and Schottky disorder. In the first case there are equal numbers of cation vacancies... 

An unusual crystal arrangement is exhibited by the isomorphous compounds CrCl and Crl. The close-packed cubic array of Cl or I atoms has two-thirds of the octahedral holes between every other pair of chlorine or iodine planes filled with chromium atoms. Alternate layers of the halogen compounds are held together by van der Waals forces (39,40). 

The prototype hard metals are the compounds of six of the transition metals Ti, Zr, and Hf, as well as V, Nb, and Ta. Their carbides all have the NaCl crystal structure, as do their nitrides except for Ta. The NaCi structure consists of close-packed planes of metal atoms stacked in the fee pattern with the metalloids (C, N) located in the octahedral holes. The borides have the A1B2 structure in which close-packed planes of metal atoms are stacked in the simple hexagonal pattern with all of the trigonal prismatic holes occupied by boron atoms. Thus the structures are based on the highest possible atomic packing densities consistent with the atomic sizes. 

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