P Phosphorus

The new Supplement Volume C1 of Phosphorus starts with the description of its compounds. It covers the monononuclear, binary phosphorous-hydrogen compounds, namely PH through PH5, as well as the series of ionic species featuring the same stoichiometry. The comprehensive coverage of the most important compound in this context, the PH3 is also increasingly scientifically as the ammonia analog of phosphorus. It exhibits, however, a quite different chemical behavior and substantially different physical properties. PH3 is also increasingly interesting from an industrial point of view. It plays also a major part in the manufacture of a variety of semiconductor electronic devices and functions as a starting material for the production of many organophosphorous chemicals. Just as PH3 itself, its two most important initial gaseous decomposition products, PH and PH2, have been thoroughly investigated by a variety of modern, high-resolution spectroscopic methods during the last three decades. The extensive coverage of their physical, and mostly molecular properties takes over 100 pages, and comprises all relevant physical constants of these two molecules. Both species are also intermediates in many gasphase reactions of PH3.