High-pressure structural and elastic properties of Tl2O3

Abstract

The structural properties of Thallium (III) oxide (Tl2O3) have been studied both experimentally and theoretically under compression at room temperature. X-ray powder diffraction measurements up to 37.7 GPa have been complemented with ab initio total-energy calculations. The equation of state of Tl2O3 has been determined and compared to related compounds. It has been found experimentally that Tl2O3 remains in its initial cubic bixbyite-type structure up to 22.0 GPa. At this pressure, the onset of amorphization is observed, being the sample fully amorphous at 25.2 GPa. The sample retains the amorphous state after pressure release. To understand the pressure-induced amorphization process, we have studied theoretically the possible high-pressure phases of Tl2O3. Although a phase transition is theoretically predicted at 5.8 GPa to the orthorhombic Rh2O3-II-type structure and at 24.2 GPa to the orthorhombic alpha-Gd2S3-type structure, neither of these phases were observed experimentally, probably due to the hindrance of the pressure-driven phase transitions at room temperature. The theoretical study of the elastic behavior of the cubic bixbyite-type structure at high-pressure shows that amorphization above 22 GPa at room temperature might be caused by the mechanical instability of the cubic bixbyite-type structure which is theoretically predicted above 23.5 GPa. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC. ; This study was supported by the Spanish government MEC under Grant Nos. MAT2010-21270-C04-01/03/04, MAT2013-46649-C4-1/2/3-P, and CTQ2009-14596-C02-01, by the Comunidad de Madrid and European Social Fund (S2009/PPQ-1551 4161893), by MALTA Consolider Ingenio 2010 project (CSD2007-00045), and by Generalitat Valenciana (GVA-ACOMP-2013-1012 and GVA-ACOMP-2014-243). We acknowledge Diamond Light Source for time on beamline I15 under proposal EE6517 and I15 beamline scientist for technical support. A.M. and P.R.-H. acknowledge computing time provided by Red Espanola de Supercomputacion (RES) and MALTA-Cluster. B.G.-D. and J.A.S. ...