Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Studies Of Inner-Shell Chemistry Of Mercury Based Compounds At Extreme Conditions, Sarah Schyck

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

It has been theoretically predicted that when mercury difluoride (HgF2) is pressurized to above 50 GPa in the presence of molecular fluorine, it will most likely transform into mercury tetrafluoride (HgF4), thus mercury will behave as a transition element at high pressure. However, there is no experimental evidence verifying this prediction yet. To begin with, the crystalline properties of pure HgF2 at high pressure were not experimentally established. In this thesis, the high pressure structural properties of HgF2 are investigated by means of synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction. Our results reveal that the predicted, ambient cubic structure of HgF2 with the …