Relativistic effects and gold site distributions: synthesis, structure, and bonding in a polar intermetallic Na6Cd16Au7.

Na(6)Cd(16)Au(7) has been synthesized via typical high-temperature reactions, and its structure refined by single crystal X-ray diffraction as cubic, Fm ̅3m, a = 13.589(1) Å, Z = 4. The structure consists of Cd(8) tetrahedral star (TS) building blocks that are face capped by six shared gold (Au2) vertexes and further diagonally bridged via Au1 to generate an orthogonal, three-dimensional framework [Cd(8)(Au2)(6/2)(Au1)(4/8)], an ordered ternary derivative of Mn(6)Th(23). Linear muffin-tin-orbital (LMTO)-atomic sphere approximation (ASA) electronic structure calculations indicate that Na(6)Cd(16)Au(7) is metallic and that ∼76% of the total crystal orbital Hamilton populations (-ICOHP) originate from polar Cd-Au bonding with 18% more from fewer Cd-Cd contacts. Na(6)Cd(16)Au(7) (45 valence electron count (vec)) is isotypic with the older electron-richer Mg(6)Cu(16)Si(7) (56 vec) in which the atom types are switched and bonding characteristics among the network elements are altered considerably (Si for Au, Cu for Cd, Mg for Na). The earlier and more electronegative element Au now occupies the Si site, in accord with the larger relativistic bonding contributions from polar Cd-Au versus Cu-Si bonds with the neighboring Cd in the former Cu positions. Substantial electronic differences in partial densities-of-states (PDOS) and COHP data for all atoms emphasize these. Strong contributions of nearby Au 5d(10) to bonding states without altering the formal vec are the likely origin of these effects.