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Arsenolite: a quasi-hydrostatic solid pressure transmitting medium
This study reports the experimental characterization of the hydrostatic properties of arsenolite
(As4O6), a molecular solid which is one of the softest minerals in the absence of hydrogen
bonding. The high compressibility of arsenolite and its stability up to 15GPa have been
proved by x-ray diffraction measurements, and the progressive loss of hydrostaticity with
increasing pressure up to 20GPa has been monitored by ruby photoluminescence. Arsenolite
has been found to exhibit hydrostatic behavior up to 2.5GPa and a quasi-hydrostatic behavior
up to 10GPa at room temperature. This result opens the way to explore other molecular solids
as possible quasi-hydrostatic pressure-transmitting media. The validity of arsenolite as an
insulating, stable, non-penetrating and quasi-hydrostatic medium is explored by the study of
the x-ray diffraction of zeolite ITQ-29 at high pressure.This work has been performed with financial support from Spanish MINECO under projects MAT2013-46649-C4-2/3-P and MAT2015-71070-REDC. JAS acknowledges the 'Ramon y Cajal' fellowship program for financial support. We also thank D Calatayud, J J Garcia, T M Godoy, A Zapata, and A Cuenca for fruitful discussions. The authors thank ALBA light source for beam allocation at beamline MSPD. JLJ and FR acknowledge financial support through the SEV-2012-0267, Consolider Ingenio 2010-Multicat (CSD-2009-0050) and MAT2015-71842-P (MINECO/FEDER) projects.Sans-Tresserras, JÁ.; Manjón, FJ.; Popescu, C.; Muñoz, A.; Rodríguez-Hernández, P.; Jordá, JL.; Rey Garcia, F. (2016). Arsenolite: a quasi-hydrostatic solid pressure transmitting medium. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. 28(47):475403-1-475403-7. doi:10.1088/0953-8984/28/47/475403S475403-1475403-7284