Study of pressure-induced structural phase transitions in the van der Waals multiferroic CuCrP2S6

The aim of this proposal is to investigate the the evolution of the atomic lattice in a van der Waals (vdW) multiferroic CuCrP2S6 as a function of pressure and temperature. CuCrP2S6, a type-I multiferroic material, has generated much excitement and is considered as a promising 2D vdW candidate owing to the coexistence of antiferroelectricity and antiferromagnetism, alongwith strong polarization magnetization coupling. Both electric dipoles and spin orders of CCPS stem from spin-orbit coupling, originating from crystal symmetry breaking. However, so far, a detailed pressure-dependent crystallographic study has not been achieved. Here, we propose a high-pressure single crystal x-ray diffraction (XRD) study to fill this gap and to shed light on the interaction of the material's structural and complex ferroic behaviors.