Uranium Nitride Synthesis Breakthrough

[sanman]

There have been some recent announcements in the news about the synthesis of Uranium Nitride.

One announcement from Los Alamos National Labs mentions the use of photolysis to achieve the desired material:

http://tri-lab.lanl.gov/index.php/energy-security/75-using-light-to-create-rare-uranium-molecule


Another announcement from University of Nottingham mentions the use of sodium to achieve the desired material:

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/chemistry/news/uranium-nitride-breakthrough.aspx


Are they talking about the same resulting material in both announcements? Are these 2 different methods of synthesis for the same material? Or are they the same synthesis path?

If they are 2 paths to the same thing, then what are the pro's and cons relative to each other?

 

[DrDu]

I had a look at the two articles today. The two compounds are not the same. The Nottingham group succeeded in synthesizing a stable Uranium-V complex with a UN triple bond which they could characterize by many methods.
The Los Alamos group could only synthesize an boron caped nitride with evidence that a UN triple bond may have been formed as an itermediary.
The original articles are here
http://server.ihim.uran.ru/files/info/2010/nchem.705.pdf
and there
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6095/717.short
in the same science magazine there is also a perspective article
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6095/652.summary
from which you may learn more than the spelling of the inflationary word "breakthrough" from the press releases.