Single-crystalline polymeric nitrogen

Abstract

The authors synthesized polymeric nitrogen at pressures above 110GPa with laser heating above 2000K. To prove its cubic gauche (cg) structure, the authors have grown single crystals which produced strong reflections at large diffraction angles. The authors found nine peaks in the 2Θ=35° range with a special diamond anvil cell. All of the peaks agree with the cg-N structure. The authors checked various combinations of gasket materials and heaters to study possible contamination of the polymeric nitrogen by products of the reaction of the hot nitrogen with these materials or diamond anvils, and found that this is not the case.