Sl. Brock et al., RESISTIVITY AND MAGNETISM OF AMN2P2 (A=SR, BA) - THE EFFECT OF STRUCTURE TYPE ON PHYSICAL-PROPERTIES, Journal of solid state chemistry, 113(2), 1994, pp. 303-311
AMn2P2(A = Sr, Ba) is an example of a composition that can assume a di
fferent structure type depending on the identity of the cation. BaMn2P
2 crystallizes in the ThCr2Si2 structure type (I4/mmm), and SrMn2P2 cr
ystallizes in the CaAl2Si2 structure type (P3BARm1). Temperature-depen
dent magnetic susceptibility, neutron diffraction, and resistivity mea
surements were obtained for the two compounds. Neutron diffraction sho
ws that BaMn2P2 exhibits long-range antiferromagnetic ordering at room
temperature. Mn(II) is high spin, with ordered moment 4.2 (1) mu(B),
and the magnetic structure is type G. Magnetic susceptibility measurem
ents show no maxima up to 750 K, indicating that the transition temper
ature, T(c), is very high. SrMn2P2 is antiferromagnetic below T(c) = 5
3(1) K, as determined from the temperature dependence of the magnetic
reflections. There are two distinct sets of magnetic reflections disti
nguished by different temperature dependencies and indexing schemes. T
he magnetic structure is evidently complex, but was not determined. Bo
th compounds exhibit semiconducting resistivity behavior with E(a) = 0
.073(1) eV (BaMn2P2) and 0.0129(2) eV (SrMn2P2). The properties of BaM
n2P2 and SrMn2P2 are discussed in light of their structures and previo
us theoretical investigations by Zheng and Hoffmann. (C) 1994 Academic
Press, Inc.