High-Pressure Raman Study on Anglesite

High-pressure Raman spectroscopic experiments of anglesite, PbSO4, were carried out in a diamond anvil cell up to about 35 GPa at room temperature. Two stages of changes in the pattern of wavenumber-versus-pressure plot were observed in most of the vibrational modes. The first stage of change is the kink in the slope of wavenumber-versus-pressure plot at about 14 GPa, indicating a change in the force constant of modes. Further compression up to 21 GPa causes the splitting in the S-O stretching modes, representing the distortion of SO4 tetrahedron. The behavior of transition observed in PbSO4 is similar to that of BaSO4 as well as those found in the solid solution series of BaSO4-SrSO4. Transitions taking place at higher pressure for anglesite is due to the relatively greater value of electronegativity for Pb, as compared with M in other complex compounds of similar structure.