A high-pressure study of PbCO3 by XRD and Raman spectroscopy

The pressure-induced phase transitions of PbCO3 are studied using synchrotron radiation in a diamond anvil cell at room temperature. The XRD measurement indicates that PbCO3 with an initial phase of aragonite-type structure undergoes two phase transitions at ～7.8GPa and ～15.7GPa respectively. The higher-pressure phase appearing at ～ 15.7GPa is stable up to 51.8GPa. The two phase transitions are further confirmed by Raman scattering up to 23.3GPa. During the decompression process, the high-pressure phases of PbCO3 are gradually recovered to the starting aragonite-type structure, but exhibit some hysteresis. The bulk modulus B0 of the aragonite-type structure is obtained to be 63±(3) GPa by fitting the volume-pressure data to the Birch-Murnaghan equation of states with B0 fixed to 4.