High-Pressure Polymorph of NaBiO3

Hydrothermal magic for the synthesis of new bismuth oxides

A variety of bismuth oxides have been synthesized by hydrothermal reactions using NaBiO₃·nH₂O as a starting material.

Crystal Structure, Thermal Behavior, and Photocatalytic Activity of NaBiO3· nH2O

The crystal structure of NaBiO₃· nH₂O was refined using synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction and was assigned to a trigonal unit cell (space group P3̅) consisting of layered structures formed by edge-sharing BiO₆ octahedra and consisting of an interlayer composed of water molecules sandwiched between two layers of sodium atoms, perpendicular to the c axis. An intermediate phase was observed during the dehydration of the hydrated compound. Density of state calculations showed hybridization of the Bi 6s and O 2p orbitals at the bottom of the conduction bands for both the hydrated and the dehydrated phases, which narrows the band gap and promotes their photocatalytic activity in the visible region.

Structural and Magnetic Transitions in CaCo3V4O12 Perovskite at Extreme Conditions

We investigated the structural, vibrational, magnetic, and electronic properties of the recently synthesized CaCo₃V₄O₁₂ double perovskite with the high-spin (HS) Co²⁺ ions in a square-planar oxygen coordination at extreme conditions of high pressures and low temperatures. The single-crystal X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy studies up to 60 GPa showed a conservation of its cubic crystal structure but indicated a crossover near 30 GPa. Above 30 GPa, we observed both an abnormally high "compressibility" of the Co-O bonds in the square-planar oxygen coordination and a huge anisotropic displacement of HS-Co²⁺ ions in the direction perpendicular to the oxygen planes. Although this effect is reminiscent of a continuous HS → LS transformation of the Co²⁺ ions, it did not result in the anticipated shrinkage of the cell volume because of a certain "stiffing" of the bonds of the Ca and V cations. We verified that the oxidation states of all the cations did not change across this crossover, and hence, no charge-transfer effects were involved. Consequently, we proposed that CaCo₃V₄O₁₂ could undergo a phase transition at which the large HS-Co²⁺ ions were pushed out of the oxygen planes because of lattice compression. The antiferromagnetic transition in CaCo₃V₄O₁₂ at 100 K was investigated by neutron powder diffraction at ambient pressure. We established that the magnetic moments of the Co²⁺ ions were aligned along one of the cubic axes, and the magnetic structure had a 2-fold periodicity along this axis, compared to the crystallographic one.