Materials Data on LaF3 by Materials Project

LaF3 is alpha bismuth trifluoride structured and crystallizes in the cubic Fm-3m space group. The structure is three-dimensional. La3+ is bonded in a distorted body-centered cubic geometry to fourteen F1- atoms. There are eight shorter (2.54 Å) and six longer (2.93 Å) La–F bond lengths. There are two inequivalent F1- sites. In the first F1- site, F1- is bonded in a 6-coordinate geometry to six equivalent La3+ and eight equivalent F1- atoms. All F–F bond lengths are 2.54 Å. In the second F1- site, F1- is bonded to four equivalent La3+ and four equivalent F1- atoms to form a mixture of face, edge, and corner-sharing FLa4F4 tetrahedra.