Carbon tetrahedron squeezes phosphorus into smallest possible bond angle

 An image showing the structural drawing of tri-tert-butyl phosphatetrahedrane 1 from a singlecrystal x-ray diffraction experiment

Source: © Science/AAAS

Phosphorus manages to stabilise an ultra-strained tetrahedrane’s banana bonds

The first phosphatetrahedrane, an ultra-strained molecule made from three carbon atoms and one phosphorus arranged in a tetrahedron, has been synthesised by chemists in the US. The compound contains the smallest sum of bond angles ever seen in a trivalent phosphorus.