Showing 7 results for Author: Chris Ridley
Jul, 2026
Journal
The structures adopted by solids under pressure are often assumed to reflect thermodynamic equilibrium, yet in many materials phase selection is strongly influenced by kinetic pathways and microstructural inheritance. Elemental cerium (Ce) exemplifies this challenge, with decades of conflicting reports describing different high-pressure crystal structures emerging under no…
Jul, 2026
Journal
Doping is widely used to enhance the photoelectrochemical performance of BiVO4, yet solubility limits and polymorphic stability constrain compositional tuning. Here, the role of trivalent cation substitution (Ln = La, Nd, Dy, Ho, Y) on pressure-induced phase transformations in Bi1–xLnxVO4 (x ≤ 0.5) is described. Powder X-ray and neutron diffraction reveal that increasing L…
Jun, 2026
Journal
High-pressure variable-temperature neutron powder diffraction was employed to investigate the synthesis and structural properties of arsenolite (As4O6), a cubic arsenic(III) oxide polymorph, and its inclusion compound with deuterium. The compound forms with the stoichiometry As4O6·2D2, consistent with earlier findings. At 295 K and 1.96(2) GPa, D2 molecules occupy the 16c…
Dec, 2025
Journal
Pyrazine (1,4-diazine) is a widely used linker in coordination polymers, molecular magnets, and metal–organic frameworks, yet its solid-state polymorphism is controlled by weak C–H···N interactions. Using variable-temperature and high-pressure neutron diffraction, a previously unrecognized low-temperature transition to phase IV is identified, showing that the form stabiliz…
Sep, 2025
Journal
The pressure response of the triangular-honeycomb-structured quantum spin liquid candidate, TbInO3, has been determined via neutron powder diffraction up to 5.75(5) GPa. The system retains hexagonal symmetry up to the maximum pressure considered. The structure was found to compress less anisotropically than related compounds, though it is more compressible within the 2D pl…
Aug, 2025
Journal
We present a combination of neutron powder-diffraction measurements demonstrating negative linear compressibility and irregular thermal expansion in 7Li2CO3. This is shown to be due to an interplay between the tilting of the rigid carbonate group and the shear strain in the unit cell, which leads to a first-order transition from monoclinic to hexagonal symmetry. The phase…
Aug, 2025
Journal
The lithium salt LiPF6 is a key component in commercial lithium-ion battery (LIB) electrolytes. However, its structural properties under pressure remain unexplored, despite increasing interest in the effect of pressure on electrolyte behaviour, and a growing interest in high pressure synthesis of new Li-hexafluoride cathode materials. Here, we present the first high pressu…