Pressure-induced reconstructive phase transition in Cd3As2

Monika Gamża, Paolo Abrami, Lawrence V. D. Gammond, Jake Ayres, Israel Osmond, Takaki Muramatsu, Robert Armstrong, Hugh Perryman, Dominik Daisenberger, Sitikantha Das, and Sven Friedemann
Phys. Rev. Materials 5, 024209 – Published 26 February 2021

Abstract

Cadmium arsenide (Cd3As2) hosts massless Dirac electrons in its ambient-condition tetragonal phase. We report x-ray diffraction and electrical resistivity measurements of Cd3As2 upon cycling pressure beyond the critical pressure of the tetragonal phase and back to ambient conditions. We find that, at room temperature, the transition between the low- and high-pressure phases results in large microstrain and reduced crystallite size, both on rising and falling pressure. This leads to nonreversible electronic properties, including self-doping associated with defects and a reduction of the electron mobility by an order of magnitude due to increased scattering. This paper indicates that the structural transformation is sluggish and shows a sizable hysteresis of over 1 GPa. Therefore, we conclude that the transition is first-order reconstructive, with chemical bonds being broken and rearranged in the high-pressure phase. Using the diffraction measurements, we demonstrate that annealing at 200C greatly improves the crystallinity of the high-pressure phase. We show that its Bragg peaks can be indexed as a primitive orthorhombic lattice with aHP8.68 Å, bHP17.15 Å, and cHP18.58 Å. The diffraction study indicates that, during the structural transformation, a new phase with another primitive orthorhombic structure may also be stabilized by deviatoric stress, providing an additional venue for tuning the unconventional electronic states in Cd3As2.

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  • Received 5 October 2020
  • Revised 22 January 2021
  • Accepted 9 February 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.5.024209

©2021 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Monika Gamża1, Paolo Abrami2, Lawrence V. D. Gammond2, Jake Ayres2, Israel Osmond2, Takaki Muramatsu2, Robert Armstrong2, Hugh Perryman2, Dominik Daisenberger3, Sitikantha Das2,4, and Sven Friedemann2,*

  • 1Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Mathematics, Physics and Astrophysics, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, United Kingdom
  • 2HH Wills Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TL, United Kingdom
  • 3Diamond Light Source, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, OX11 ODE, United Kingdom
  • 4Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 721 302, India

  • *sven.friedemann@bristol.ac.uk

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Vol. 5, Iss. 2 — February 2021

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