Pressure-induced phase transition and band-gap collapse in the wide-band-gap semiconductor InTaO4

A pressure-induced phase transition, associated with an increase of the coordination number of In and Ta, is detected beyond 13 GPa in InTaO4 by combining synchrotron x-ray diffraction and Raman measurements in a diamond-anvil cell with ab initio calculations. High-pressure optical-absorption measurements were also carried out. The high-pressure phase has a monoclinic structure that shares the same space group with the low-pressure phase (P2/c). The structure of the high-pressure phase can be considered as a slight distortion of an orthorhombic structure described by space group Pcna. The phase transition occurs together with a unit-cell volume collapse and an electronic band-gap collapse observed by experiments and calculations. Additionally, a band crossing is found to occur in the low-pressure phase near 7 GPa. The pressure dependence of all the Raman-active modes is reported for both phases as well as the pressure dependence of unit-cell parameters and the equations of state. Calculations also provide information on infrared-active phonons and bond distances. These findings provide insights into the effects of pressure on the physical properties of InTaO4.This paper was partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) under Grants No. MAT2013-46649-C04-01/02/03 and No. MAT2015-71070-REDC (MALTA Consolider). The XRD experiments were performed at the MSPD-BL04 beamline at ALBA Synchrotron with the collaboration of ALBA staff. We thank S. Agouram from SC-SIE at Universitat de Valencia for technical support with the transmission electron microscope measurements.Errandonea, D.; Popescu, C.; Garg, A.; Botella, P.; Martinez García, D.; Pellicer Porres, J.; Rodríguez Hernández, P.... (2016). Pressure-induced phase transition and band-gap collapse in the wide-band-gap semiconductor InTaO4. 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