Crystal structures of violet phosphorus and red phosphorus

In summary, there are two different crystal structures given for violet phosphorus on two different websites. The first website, Openstax CNX, shows a double bond between two phosphorus atoms in Figure 12, while the second website, Chemwiki, shows a dangling bond in the phosphorus atom in Figure 3. It is unclear which structure is correct. For red phosphorus, Wikipedia does not provide a clear figure for its crystal structure. However, if violet phosphorus does have a crystal structure, it must be periodic in all three directions. The purple allotrope of phosphorus appears to have a monoclinic structure with 84 atoms in the unit cell. The images shown seem to be of the same structure, but
  • #1
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For violet phophorus,it seems that the crystal structures given by two websites are not the same.In Openstax CNX,the link is http://cnx.org/contents/f46e8679-ee00-4073-9f5e-a87ca9955a9e@25.9:67/Chemistry_of_the_Main_Group_El
and the Figure 12 displays it as follows:
graphics14.jpg

But in Chemwiki,the link is http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Inorgan..._The_Nitrogen_Family/Chemistry_of_Phosphorous
and the Figure 3 displays it as follows:

800px-Violet-phosphorus-chain-from-xtal-3D-balls.png

Which is right for these two forms of structure ?
There is a double bond between two phosphorus in the first figure,is the structure reseanable?
There is a dangling bond in the phosphorus in the second one, is the structure stable ?
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For red phosphorus, the Wikipedia does not show a clear figure,for example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_phosphorus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus#cite_note-berger-8
who can supply a clear figure of the crystal structure?
 
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  • #2
If violet Phosphorus really forms a crystal structure, then it has (by definition) to be periodic in all 3 directions.

For the purple allotrope the structure appears to be monoclinic with 84 (!) atoms in the unit cell, so the unit
cell will be huge and have an odd shape.

The images you show seem to be the same structure, just truncated differently.

This is a relatively recent article that give more details:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.196610473/abstract
 

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