Pnictides

Compounds

Binary compounds of the group can be referred to collectively as pnictides. Magnetic properties of pnictide compounds span the cases of diamagnetic systems (such as BN or GaN) and magnetically ordered systems (MnSb is paramagnetic at elevated temperatures and ferromagnetic at room temperature); the former compounds are usually transparent and the latter metallic. Other pnictides include the ternary rare-earth (RE) main-group variety of pnictides. These are in the form of RE_aM_bPn_c, where M is a carbon group or boron group element and Pn is any pnictogen except nitrogen. These compounds are between ionic and covalent compounds and thus have unusual bonding properties.