Abstract
Single-crystal X-ray diffraction experiments with SiO2 α-cristobalite reveal that the well-known reversible displacive phase transition to cristobalite-II, which occurs at approximately 1.8 GPa, can be suppressed by rapid pressure increase, leading to an overpressurized metastable state, persisting to pressure as high as 10 GPa. In another, slow pressure increase experiment, the monoclinic high-pressure phase-II was observed to form at ~1.8 GPa, in agreement with earlier in situ studies, and its crystal structure has been unambiguously determined. Single-crystal data have been used to refine the structure models of both phases over the range of pressure up to the threshold of formation of cristobalite X-I at ~12 GPa, providing important constraints on the feasibility of the two competing silica densification models proposed in the literature, based on quantum mechanical calculations. Preliminary diffraction data obtained for cristobalite X-I reveal a monoclinic unit cell that contradicts the currently assumed model.
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Notes
It should be noted that at least at ambient pressure only the high-temperature β-cristobalite is a stable phase according to the thermodynamic definition. All other cristobalite phases are metastable. Throughout this paper, we use the term “metastable overpressurization” to describe the phenomenon of suppression of a displacive phase transition from one metastable phase to another that would otherwise occur on compression at ambient temperature.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for useful suggestions that helped to improve the manuscript. This work was performed at GeoSoilEnviroCARS (Sector 13), Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratory. GeoSoilEnviroCARS is supported by the National Science Foundation–Earth Sciences (EAR-0622171) and Department of Energy–Geosciences (DE-FG02-94ER14466). Use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Funding for MB and RTD was provided by the CDAC program.
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Dera, P., Lazarz, J.D., Prakapenka, V.B. et al. New insights into the high-pressure polymorphism of SiO2 cristobalite. Phys Chem Minerals 38, 517–529 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00269-011-0424-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00269-011-0424-5