Crystal structure and properties of the binary uranium telluride U2Te5

Single crystal X-ray studies of U2Te5 revealed that this compound crystallizes in the monoclinic system with a=34.42(2) A, b=4.181(1) A, c=6.074(3) A, β=95.43(3) . The crystal structure was solved in the C2/m space group and refined to final values of reliability factors R(F)=0.031 and Rω(F)=0.038, corroborating other recent results. The two crystallographically independent uranium atoms are coordinated to eight tellurium atoms in a bicapped trigonal prismatic geometry. The layered structure is built up from stacking along the a-direction of UTe2 slabs separated by Van der Waals gaps. Magnetic measurements reveal that U2Te5 exhibits paramagnetic behaviour down to 2K, and electrical resistivity measurements on a single crystal indicate semiconducting behaviour. (orig.)