Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A complete Raman vibrational analysis has been performed on phase-pure rhombohedral phosphorus pentoxide (P4O10) at room temperature. The “molecular” Td symmetry is reduced to C3v symmetry when bound in the rhombohedral crystalline lattice. Therefore, the 15 fundamental modes of vibration irreducibly represented as Γvib = 3A1 + 3E + 3T1 + 6T2 reduce to 21 fundamental modes with a factor group analysis resulting in Γvib = 9A1 + 12E for the irreducible representation, all of which are Raman active. Complete vibrational assignments and relative intensities, including all T2 to E and A1 splittings, are reported. Five new E fundamentals (262, …