The application of pressure, internal or external, transforms molecular solids into extended solids with more itinerant electrons to soften repulsive interatomic interactions in a tight space. Examples include insulator-to-metal transitions in O(2), Xe and I(2), as well as molecular-to-non-molecular transitions in CO(2) and N(2). Here, we present new discoveries of novel two- and three-dimensional extended non-molecular phases of solid XeF(2) and their metallization. At approximately 50 GPa, the transparent linear insulating XeF(2) transforms into a reddish two-dimensional graphite-like hexagonal layered structure of semiconducting XeF(4). Above 70 GPa, it further transforms into a black three-dimensional fluorite-like structure of the first observed metallic XeF(8) polyhedron. These simultaneously occurring molecular-to-non-molecular and insulator-to-metal transitions of XeF(2) arise from the pressure-induced delocalization of non-bonded lone-pair electrons to sp(3)d(2) hybridization in two-dimensional XeF(4) and to p(3)d(5) in three-dimensional XeF(8) through the chemical bonding of all eight valence electrons in Xe and, thereby, fulfilling the octet rule at high pressures.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 04 October 2020.
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#10,310,327
of 31,943,232 outputs
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#3,142
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#51,159
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Outputs of similar age from Nature Chemistry
#39
of 53 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 31,943,232 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 67th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,901 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 34.9. This one is in the 19th percentile – i.e., 19% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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