Abstract
With the use of X-ray diffraction and neutron scattering, the effect of hot pressing on the modulated structure in Zr0.98Sn0.02TiO4 was investigated in order to obtain information concerning the nature of the competing forces that bring about a structural instability at a general wave-vector. It was found that an increase in pressure lowers the normal-to-incommensurate and incommensurate-to-commensurate transitions (dT i/dP i ≈ −7.1K kbar−1 and dT c/dP c ≈ −8.8 K kbar−1 respectively). The latter transition displays a distinct hysteresis.