High-pressure study of isoviolanthrone by Raman spectroscopy.

Vibrational properties of isoviolanthrone are investigated by Raman scattering at pressures up to 30.5 GPa and room temperature. A complete characterization of phonon spectra under pressure is given for this material. The onset of a phase transition at 11.0 GPa and the formation of a new phase above 13.8 GPa are identified from both the frequency shifts and the changes in the full width half maxima of the intra- and internal modes. The transition is proposed to result from the changes of intra- and intermolecular bonding. The tendencies of the intensity ratios with pressure are in good agreement with the pressure dependence of the resistance at room temperature, indicating that the phase transition may be an electronic origin. The absence of the changes in the lattice modes indicates that the observed phase transition is probably a result of the structural distortions or reorganizations. The reversible character of the transition upon compression and decompression is determined in the entire pressure region studied.

Constraint on the potassium content for the superconductivity of potassium-intercalated phenanthrene.

Raman-scattering measurements were performed on K(x)phenanthrene (0 ⩽ x ⩽ 6.0) at room temperature. Three phases (x = 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0) are identified based on the obtained Raman spectra. Only the K3phenanthrene phase is found to exhibit the superconducting transition at 5 K. The C-C stretching modes are observed to broaden and become disordered in K(x)phenanthrene with x = 2.0, 2.5, 6.0, indicating some molecular disorder in the metal intercalation process. This disorder is expected to influence the nonmetallic nature of these materials. The absence of metallic character in these nonsuperconducting phases is found from the calculated electronic structures based on the local density approximation.

Structural and vibrational properties of phenanthrene under pressure.

The structural and vibrational properties of phenanthrene are measured at high pressures up to 30.2 GPa by Raman spectroscopy and synchrotron X-ray diffraction techniques. Two phase transitions are observed in the Raman spectra at pressures of 2.3 GPa and 5.4 GPa which correspond to significant changes of intermolecular and intramolecular vibrational modes. Above 10.2 GPa, all the Raman peaks are lost within the fluorescence background; however, upon further compression above 20.0 GPa, three broad peaks are observed at 1600, 2993, and 3181 cm(-1), indicating that phenanthrene has transformed into amorphous phase. Using X-ray diffraction, the structures of corresponding phases observed from Raman spectra are indexed with space groups of P2(1) for phase I (0-2.2 GPa), P2/m for phase II (2.2-5.6 GPa), P2/m+Pmmm for phase III (5.6-11.4 GPa) which has a coexistence of structures, and above 11.4 GPa the structure is indexed with space group of Pmmm. Although phenanthrene has transformed to a hydrogenated amorphous carbon structure above 20.0 GPa, these amorphous clusters still show characteristic crystalline behavior based on our X-ray diffraction patterns. Our results suggest that the long-range periodicity and the local disorder state coexist in phenanthrene at high pressures.

Phase transformations and vibrational properties of coronene under pressure.

Both the vibrational and structural properties of coronene have been investigated upon compression up to 30.5 GPa at room temperature by a combination of Raman scattering and synchrotron x-ray diffraction measurements. The spectroscopic and crystallographic results demonstrate that two pressure-induced structural phase transitions take place at 1.5 GPa and 12.2 GPa where the high-pressure phases are identified as monoclinic and orthorhombic crystal structures with space groups of P2/m and Pmmm, respectively. A kink in the slope of the cell parameters as a function of pressure is associated with the disappearance of several internal Raman modes, which suggests the existence of structural distortions or reorganizations at approximately 6.0 GPa. Above 17.1 GPa, almost no evidence of crystallinity can be observed, indicating a possible transformation of coronene into an amorphous phase.

Combined experimental and computational study of high-pressure behavior of triphenylene.

We have performed measurements of Raman scattering, synchrotron x-ray diffraction, and visible transmission spectroscopy combined with density functional theory calculations to study the pressure effect on solid triphenylene. The spectroscopic results demonstrate substantial change of the molecular configuration at 1.4 GPa from the abrupt change of splitting, disappearance, and appearance of some modes. The structure of triphenylene is found be to stable at high pressures without any evidence of structural transition from the x-ray diffraction patterns. The obtained lattice parameters show a good agreement between experiments and calculations. The obtained band gap systematically decreases with increasing pressure. With the application of pressure, the molecular planes become more and more parallel relative to each other. The theoretical calculations indicate that this organic compound becomes metallic at 180 GPa, fueling the hope for the possible realization of superconductivity at high pressure.