Ru3Sn7, a re-investigation

Triruthenium heptatin, Ru3Sn7, is an example of a body-centered cubic struc ture that can be described with two interpenetrating similar networks of sl ightly distorted square-antiprism Ru-Sn polyhedra. Each network can be mode led as dimers of face-sharing Ru-Sn square-antiprism polyhedra connected to each other with the square face. These barrel-like dimers make up one of t he two networks. The barrels are connected to each other by the edge of the outer square face. The two interpenetrating networks are connected via the central corner Sn atoms of each dimer.