Quaternary equiatomic manganese pnictide oxides AMnPO (A=La-Nd, Sm, Gd-Dy), AMnAsO (A=Y, La-Nd, Sm, Gd-Dy, U), and AMnSbO (A=La-Nd, Sm, Gd) with ZrCuSiAs type structure

The 24 title compounds were prepared in well crystallized form by reaction of the rare earth elements (or uranium, respectively), manganese, the pnictide components, and MnO2 in a NaCl/KCl flux. They crystallize with the tetragonal ZrCuSiAs type structure (P4/nmm, Z = 2), which has been refined from single-crystal X-ray data of NdMnPO (a = 398.9(1), c = 867.4(1) pm, R = 0.026), NdMnAsO (a = 404,9(2), c = 889.3(4) pm, R = 0.025), and NdMnSbO (a = 416.5(1), c = 946.2(2) pm, R = 0.021) for 107, 190, and 124 structure factors, respectively, and 11 variable parameters each. Chemical bonding in these compounds is briefly discussed.