Effect of impurity on high pressure behavior of nano indium titanate

Angle dispersive x-ray diffraction studies were carried out on a mixture of nano particles of indium titanate, indium oxide, and disordered TiO2 upto pressures of ∼ 45 GPa. Our studies show that indium titanate undergoes a partial decomposition to its constituent high pressure oxides. However, concomitantly a very small fraction of indium titanate transforms to a denser phase at ∼ 27.5 GPa. This transformation to new phase was found to be irreversible. At this pressure even cubic In2O3 transformed to the In2O3 (II) (iso-structural to Rh2O3 (II)) phase, without any signature of the intermediate corundum phase. The high pressure In2O3 (II) phase transforms to the corundum structure on release of pressure. These studies indicate that the presence of a large fraction of seed impurities could have facilitated the decomposition of indium titanate into its constituent oxides at the cost of its incomplete transformation to the high pressure denser phase.