with manganese atoms in four different types of surroundings (sites). It is paramagnetic at room temperature and antiferromagnetic at temperatures below 95 K.

Beta manganese (?-Mn) forms when heated above the transition temperature of 973 K. It has a primitive cubic structure with 20 atoms per unit cell at two types of sites, which is as complex as that of any other elemental metal. It is easily obtained as a metastable phase