Synthesis and crystal structure of a noncentrosymmetric form of potassium strontium monovanadate KSrVO 4 Mohamed Azrour a , Lahcen El Ammari a , Yvette Le Fur b , Brahim Elouadi c, * a Laboratoire de Chimie du Solide Applique ´e, Laboratoire Associe ´ Francophone (LAF-501), Faculte ´ des Sciences, Charia Ibn Batota, Rabat, Morocco b Laboratoire de Cristallographie (UP-CNRS) associe ´a ` l’Universite ´ Joseph Fourier, Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble Cedex 09, France c LEACIM, De ´partement de Chimie, Universite ´ de La Rochelle, Avenue Marillac, 17042 La Rochelle Cedex 01, France (Refereed) Received 27 February 1999; accepted 5 April 1999 Abstract Transparent single crystals of KSrVO 4 were grown at 1500°C by the direct melt and slow cooling technique. X-ray crystallography has shown that this compound crystallizes in the orthorhombic system with the space group P2 1 2 1 2 1 (No. 9). The lattice parameters are a = 5.865, b = 7.491, c = 10.021 Å, and Z = 4. The structure is isotypical with -K 2 SO 4 , but with a different space group. It can be regarded as made of independent [VO 4 ] 3- tetrahedra arranged in such way as to delimit large cavities where Sr 2+ and K + are located in eight- and ninefold coordination spheres, respectively. The mean interatomic distances K–O, Sr–O, and V–O are equal to 2.952, 2.645, and 1.720 Å, respectively. © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: A. Oxides; B. Chemical synthesis; C. X-ray diffraction; D. Crystal structure 1. Introduction The preparation of KSrVO 4 by solid-state reaction at high temperature was first described by Klement and Kresse [1]. Other authors [2,3] later synthesized this compound in sealed * Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-46-45-82-95; fax: +33-46-45-82-29. E-mail address: elouadi@univ-lr.fr (B. Elouadi). Pergamon Materials Research Bulletin 35 (2000) 263–270 0025-5408/00/$ – see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0025-5408(00)00211-7