Pressure dependence of the structure and electronic properties of

Pressure dependence of the structure and electronic properties of Sr3Ir2O7 General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. We study the structural evolution of Sr3Ir2O7 as a function of pressure using x-ray diffraction. At a pressure of 54 GPa at room temperature, we observe a first-order structural phase transition, associated with a change from tetragonal to monoclinic symmetry, and accompanied by a 4% volume collapse. Rietveld refinement of the high-pressure phase reveals a novel modification of the Ruddlesden-Popper structure, which adopts an altered stacking sequence of the perovskite bilayers. As the positions of the oxygen atoms could not be reliably refined from the data, we use density functional theory (LDA+U +SO) to both optimize the crystal structure, and to elucidate the electronic and magnetic properties of Sr3Ir2O7 at high pressure. In the low-pressure tetragonal phase, we find that the in-plane rotation of the IrO6 octahedra increases with pressure. The calculations further indicate that a bandwidth-driven insulator-metal transition occurs at ∼ 20 GPa, along with a quenching of the magnetic moment. In the high-pressure monoclinic phase, structural optimization resulted in complex tilting and rotation of the oxygen octahedra, and strongly overlapping t2g and eg bands. The t2g bandwidth renders both the spin-orbit coupling and electronic correlations ineffectual in opening an electronic gap, resulting in a robust metallic state for the high-pressure phase of Sr3Ir2O7.