Synthesis and single-crystal X-ray diffraction characterization of novel yttrium carbides under high pressure up to 200 GPa

The systematic investigation of transition metal carbides chemistry under high pressure will allow to produce new forms of polycarbon entities and to understand how their formation alter the physico-chemical properties. In our recent experiments at ID15b at ESRF (Experimental report CH-6139) we successfully synthesized new orthorhombic yttrium carbide, γ-Y4C5, with unusual arrangement of carbon atoms. Here, we propose further study of the Y-C system at pressures up to 200 GPa at ID27 beamline by single-crystal X-ray diffraction (SCXRD). The main aims of this proposal are i) synthesis of new Y-C compounds at multimegabar pressure, ii) characterization of their crystal structure in-situ by employing synchrotron single-crystal X-ray diffraction and compressional behavior in order to establish the produced compounds’ equation of state and find out if they are recoverable to atmospheric pressure.