Raman spectra of the transplutonium orthophosphates and trimetaphosphates

Raman spectra have been obtained from multimicrogram samples of crystalline transplutonium (americium through einsteinium) orthophosphates. Spectra were also obtained for americium, curium, and californium trimetaphosphates. Assignments of the major Raman bands and confirmation of the compounds' stoichiometry were made by comparison with spectra obtained in previous studies on the lanthanide phosphates. The variation of transplutonium orthophosphate vibrational frequencies as a function of atomic number was found to be smaller in magnitude than that established for the lanthanide orthophosphates.