RAMAN-SPECTRA AND STRUCTURE OF PURE VITREOUS P2O5

We report the polarized Raman spectra of pure anhydrous vitreous P2O5 and conclude that this glass is a 3-connected network in which each P atom is surrounded almost tetrahedrally by three bridging O atoms and one double-bonded O terminator. Vibrational calculations on an anchored fragment are used to determine atomic motions in the higher frequency modes; these calculations confirm that the dominant Raman modes involve in-phase compression of neighboring PO bonds. © 1979.