Abstract
Abstract[alpha]-Ca3N2 as an opaque, red-brown crystalline powder lying in the cubic Ia-3 space group, was placed into a specially designed glove box under nitrogen atmosphere, along with powdered f.c.c. Au, and carefully loaded within the [beta]-brass gasket of a conventional high pressure diamond anvil cell (DAC). The powdered samples were then sealed under nitrogen atmosphere to a pressure of 8.40 Kb and taken to Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source where conventional Debeye-Scherrer diffraction photographs were recorded at 8.40, 91.0 and 137 Kb. The pressure of the sample was monitored by using the equation of state of Au, and no phase change from the Ia-3 structure was observed in the sample of powdered [alpha]-Ca3N2 up to a pressure of 137 Kb, although the red-brown powder was observed to undergo a slight band gap broadening as the opaque powder became a slightly yellow-like tinged transparent phase above 8.40 Kb. A compressibility curve and a bulk modulus for [alpha]-Ca3N2 are derived from the data presented herein.
Highlights
Introduction α-Ca3N2 belongs to the series of curious alkaline earth nitride salts that are constrained by their stoichiometry of 3-to-2 divalent alkaline earth cations to trivalent nitride anions, to form odd cubic crystals containing cation vacancies ordered along their axes, in a 2x2x2 supercell of an anti-fluorite arrangement, that exists in a high space group symmetry of Ia3 [1]
In the high pressure study conducted for, and described in this communication, using a conventional diamond anvil cell (DAC) [2], the nature of these cation vacancies was probed as a function of pressure to a maximum pressure, as measured by the equation of state of Au [3], of 137 Kb
No phase transition was observed in the α-Ca3N2 salt to 137 Kb, a compression of the unit cell was observed in diffraction photographs taken of the sample at several pressures, by conventional Debeye-Scherrer powder methods [4]
Summary
Introduction αCa3N2 belongs to the series of curious alkaline earth nitride salts that are constrained by their stoichiometry of 3-to-2 divalent alkaline earth cations to trivalent nitride anions, to form odd cubic crystals containing cation vacancies ordered along their axes, in a 2x2x2 supercell of an anti-fluorite arrangement, that exists in a high space group symmetry of Ia3 [1]. In the high pressure study conducted for, and described in this communication, using a conventional diamond anvil cell (DAC) [2], the nature of these cation vacancies was probed as a function of pressure to a maximum pressure, as measured by the equation of state of Au [3], of 137 Kb. no phase transition was observed in the α-Ca3N2 salt to 137 Kb, a compression of the unit cell was observed in diffraction photographs taken of the sample at several pressures, by conventional Debeye-Scherrer powder methods [4].
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