Phase Transition in Sarcosine Phosphite Single Crystals

Single crystals of sarcosine phosphite (SarcH(3)PO(3)) have been grown. The amino acid sarcosine is an isomer of the protein amino acid alanine. Both amino acids are described by the same chemical formula but have different structures; or, more specifically, in contrast to the alanine molecule, the sarcosine molecule has a symmetric structure. It has been found that the sarcosine phosphite compound undergoes a structural phase transition at a temperature of approximately 200 K. This result has demonstrated that compounds of achiral amino acids are more susceptible to structural phase transitions.