The high-pressure study of nanocrystalline CeO2

Abstract

The structure and properties of the nanosized [Formula: see text] under high pressure have been investigated by synchrotron X-ray diffraction in the diamond anvil cell combined with the first-principle methods based on density functional theory. The experimental data demonstrate that nanosized [Formula: see text] is highly stable upto 31.3 GPa and bulk modulus is [Formula: see text] GPa. The calculated results by [Formula: see text] indicate that [Formula: see text] undergoes structural transition from cubic fluorite-type structure to orthorhombic [Formula: see text]-[Formula: see text]-type structure at 20 GPa. The indirect band gap [Formula: see text] is 1.89 eV and increases with the increasing pressure while it suddenly reduces to 1.62 eV at transition pressure. The transition pressure calculated by GGA is 40.3 GPa.