Abstract
A novel Pr2Cu2O5 phase has been prepared under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions (P ∼6 GPa and T ∼1673 K) in a Belt-type apparatus and characterized by X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy. The crystal structure appears to be an orthorhombic “oxygen-deficient perovskite” (M.T. Anderson, J.T. Vaughey, and K.R. Poeppelmeier, Structural similarities among oxygen-deficient perovskites, Chem. Mater. 5 (1993), pp. 151–165) isostructural with La2Cu2O5 (J.F. Bringley, B.A. Scott, S.J. La Placa, R.F. Boheme, T.M. Shaw, M.W. McElfresh, S.S. Trail, and D.E. Cox, Synthesis of the defect perovskite series LaCuO 3−δ with copper valence varying from 2+to 3+, Nature 347 (1990), pp. 263–265) and Nd2Cu2O5 (B.-H. Chen, D. Walker, E. Suard, B.A. Scott, B. Mercey, M. Hervieu, and B. Raveau, High pressure synthesis of NdCuO3−δ perovskites (0≤δ≤0.5). Inorg. Chem. 34 (1995), pp. 2077–2083).
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Research Agency (CICYT, Project MAT2004-1641) and CAM (Materyener Project S-0505/PPQ-0093). We also thank Dr J.M. Gallardo-Amores for his help in the synthesis and Dr A. Dos Santos Garcĺıa, Elizabeth Castillo and Angel Arévalo for their valuable discussions. We also thank Dr Dave Rubie and Dr Dan Frost, Bayerisches Geoinstitut (Germany), for their comments and discussions.