“…S1 and S3 atoms connect with five Gd atoms to form SGd 5 tetragonal pyramid units, respectively, while the S2 atom connects with five Gd atoms to construct a SGd 5 trigonal bipyramid unit. The Gd-S bond distances in 1 are in the range of 2.752(4)-3.091(4) Å, which are normal Gd-S distances and can be exemplified by many known compounds, like 2.830(1)-2.976(1) Å in Gd 2 ZrS 5 14 and 2.774(2)-3.002(2) Å in Gd ). 19 According to the evaluation of bond valence sums, 20 each atom's oxidation state is evaluated to be 3.256 (Gd1), 3.175 (Gd2), 2.902 (Gd3), 2.911 (B1), À2.047 (S1), À2.041 (S2), À2.146 (S3), À2.080 (O1), À2.032 (O2) and À1.898 (O3), so their oxidation states can be assigned as +3, +3, À2 and À2 for Gd, B, S and O atoms in view of the small evaluation errors (all less than 10%), respectively.…”