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“Red oxygen” is the high-pressure epsilon phase of solid molecular oxygen. Its structure is a lattice in which four O₂ molecules associate into a rhombohedral unit described as O₈—not an isolated O₈ molecule or an S₈-like ring.
What is red oxygen?
Red oxygen is the name commonly used for epsilon-phase solid oxygen, a form of molecular oxygen that appears under high pressure. It is identified by properties including its dark-red color, strong infrared absorption, and magnetic collapse. The phase is stable over a large pressure domain, though the cited sources do not specify a numerical range for that broader stability.
The 2006 study addressed a long-standing structural question: infrared behavior had suggested larger molecular groupings, but the precise arrangement in epsilon oxygen was not known.
What structure did the researchers find?
The researchers described four O₂ molecules associating into a rhombohedral molecular unit, denoted O₈, within the solid’s lattice. The O₂ components are held together by bonds the authors characterized as probably weak.
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O₈ here names a structural unit made from four O₂ molecules in the crystal. It does not mean that researchers isolated a free O₈ molecule, nor does it describe an eight-atom ring analogous to sulfur’s S₈ ring.
How was the structure determined?
The team determined the structure using single-crystal X-ray diffraction data collected at pressures from 13 to 18 GPa. The proposed structure was consistent with existing spectroscopic data, and the researchers also observed a Raman stretching mode that the model had predicted.
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These are complementary checks: diffraction supplied the structural determination, while spectroscopy and the predicted Raman mode supported its consistency with observed behavior.
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Epsilon oxygen’s spectroscopic behavior had pointed to molecular groupings larger than O₂, but that clue alone had not established their exact structure. The diffraction study provided a molecular-lattice model that brought the phase’s structure into clearer view.
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The paper, by Lars F. Lundegaard, Gunnar Weck, Malcolm I. McMahon, Serge Desgreniers, and Paul Loubeyre, appeared in Nature 443, pages 201–204, on 14 September 2006. Read the paper in Nature. The 2006 SPring-8 announcement and the University of Edinburgh Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions summary also describe the finding.
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