Structural transformation of molecular nitrogen to a single-bonded atomic state at high pressures

 

Article

The Journal of Chemical Physics --  Volume 121, Issue 22, pp. 11296-11300

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M. I. Eremets Max Planck Institute für Chemie, Postfach 3060, 55020 Mainz, Germany A. G. Gavriliuk Max Planck Institute für Chemie, Postfach 3060, 55020 Mainz, Germany AV Shubnikov Institute of Crystallography, Russian Academy of Sciences, 117333, Moscow, Lininskii Avenue 59, Russia Institute for High Pressure Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 142190 Troitsk, Moscow Region, Russia N. R. Serebryanaya Technological Institute for Superhard and Novel Carbon Materials, 7-a Centralnaya Strasse, 142190 Troitsk, Moscow Region, Russia I. A. Trojan Max Planck Institute für Chemie, Postfach 3060, 55020 Mainz, Germany Institute for High Pressure Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 142190 Troitsk, Moscow Region, Russia D. A. Dzivenko and R. Boehler Max Planck Institute für Chemie, Postfach 3060, 55020 Mainz, Germany H. K. Mao and R. J. Hemley Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015   December 8, 2004 | doi:10.1063/1.1814074

The transformation of molecular nitrogen to a single-bonded atomic nitrogen is of significant interest from a fundamental stand point and because it is the most energetic non-nuclear material predicted. We performed an x-ray diffraction of nitrogen at pressures up to 170 GPa. At 60 GPa, we found a transition from the rhombohedral (Rc) -N2 phase to the -N2 phase, which we identified as orthorhombic with space group P2221 and with four molecules per unit cell. This transition is accompanied by increasing intramolecular and decreasing intermolecular distances. The major transformation of this diatomic phase into the single-bonded (polymeric) phase, recently determined to have the cubic gauche structure (cg-N), proceeds as a first-order transition with a volume change of 22%. ©2004 American Institute of Physics. This result was highlighted as No. 63 of The Year in Science: Top 100 Stories in Discover

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 Updated on Jan. 20, 2005, by Haozhe Liu