期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2010
卷号：107
期号：49
页码：20893-20898
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1006508107
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：The high-pressure behavior of silane, SiH4, plus molecular hydrogen was investigated using a structural search method and ab initio molecular dynamics to predict the structures and examine the physical origin of the pressure-induced drop in hydrogen intramolecular vibrational (vibron) frequencies. A structural distortion is predicted at 15 GPa from a slightly strained fcc cell to a rhombohedral cell that involves a small volume change. The predicted equation of state and the pressure-induced drop in the hydrogen vibron frequencies reproduces well the experimental data (Strobel TA, Somayazulu M, Hemley RJ (2009) Phys Rev Lett 103:065701). The bond weakening in H2 is induced by intermolecular interactions between the H2 and SiH4 molecules. A significant feature of the high-pressure structures of SiH4(H2)2 is the dynamical behavior of the H2 molecules. It is found that H2 molecules are rotating in this pressure range whereas the SiH4 molecules remain rigid. The detailed nature of the interactions of molecular hydrogen with SiH4 in SiH4(H2)2 is therefore strongly influenced by the dynamical behavior of the H2 molecules in the high-pressure structure. The phase with the calculated structure is predicted to become metallic near 120 GPa, which is significantly lower than the currently suggested pressure for metallization of bulk molecular hydrogen.
