Computation of the stabilities and crystal structures of known and new phosphorus allotropes made of nanotubes
Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - 05:00
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org) —What holds white, black, and red phosphorus together—and prevents it from falling apart, for example into much-sought-after atomically thin networks and nanowires? This is what German scientists now found out using numerical modeling. As they explain in the journal Angewandte Chemie, Van der Waals forces, weak interactions between covalently bonded phosphorus units, play the key role.