Erratum: New Ground-State Crystal Structure of Elemental Boron [Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 085501 (2016)]

Abstract

Our Letter reported both experimental and computation evidence for the new τ phase of elemental boron, which is closely related to the long known β phase. Our experiments clearly established that both phases are present in high purity (99.2%) samples of boron, with each grain being fully β or fully τ. Highly twinned structures have been observed previously [1] as have observations that twinning decreases as the high purity β-B grows from the liquids [2]. However, our Letter focuses on identifying a new crystal phase that we discovered experimentally, τ-B, determining its crystal structure that matches our experimental diffraction pattern and elucidating the nature of this new phase using DFT.