Vanadium(II) oxide is the inorganic compound with the idealized formula VO. It is one of the several binary

vanadium oxide Vanadium oxide may refer to: * Vanadium(II) oxide (vanadium monoxide), VO * Vanadium(III) oxide (vanadium sesquioxide ''or'' trioxide), V2O3 * Vanadium(IV) oxide (vanadium dioxide), VO2 * Vanadium(V) oxide (vanadium pentoxide), V2O5 * Vanadium(VI ...

s. It adopts a distorted

NaCl structure In crystallography, the cubic (or isometric) crystal system is a crystal system where the unit cell is in the shape of a cube. This is one of the most common and simplest shapes found in crystals and minerals. There are three main varieties o ...

and contains weak V−V metal to metal bonds. VO is a

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...

owing to delocalisation of electrons in the t_2g orbitals. VO is a

non-stoichiometric compound In chemistry, non-stoichiometric compounds are chemical compounds, almost always solid inorganic compounds, having elemental composition whose proportions cannot be represented by a ratio of small natural numbers (i.e. an empirical formula); m ...

, its composition varying from VO_0.8 to VO_1.3. Diatomic VO is one of the molecules found in the spectrum of relatively cool M-type stars.

References

Vanadium(II) compounds Non-stoichiometric compounds Transition metal oxides Rock salt crystal structure {{inorganic-compound-stub