In situ high-pressure X-ray powder diffraction measurements on Re
2P up to 37.0 GPa at ambient temperature in
diamond-
anvil cells were carried out at two different synchrotron facilities (ESRF and DESY). The compressibility of Re
2P (
Pnma, no. 62,
a = 5.5464(17),
b = 2.9421(8),
c = 10.0483(35) 脜,
V = 163.97(9) 脜
3,
Z = 4,
Rp = 0.1008,
wRp = 0.1341 at ambient conditions) was investigated and resulted in a bulk modulus of
B0 = 320(10) GPa after fitting the experimental
p鈥?i>V data to a second- and third-order Birch鈥揗urnaghan equation of state. In addition, the determined bulk modulus is compared to values obtained from an Eulerian strain versus normalized stress plot with values ranging form 315(7) to 321(15) GPa. These experimental findings are confirmed by density functional theory (DFT)-calculations ranking Re
2P among ultra-incompressible materials. However, the Vickers hardness of a high-pressure
sintered Re
2P鈥揜e
xC
y composite material in the asymptotic hardness region was found to be of only 13(2) GPa. Electrical conductivity measurements indicate that metallic Re
2P exhibits Pauli-paramagnetism. Analysis of temperature-dependent in situ X-ray diffractometry reveals an approximately isotropic expansion of the lattice parameters with a thermal expansion coefficient of (伪(
V) = 28.5鈥?2.8(2)路10
鈥? K
鈥?).
Keywords:
bulk modulus; Vickers hardness; diamond%5C-anvil+cell+technique&qsSearchArea=searchText">diamond-anvil cell technique; synchrotron radiation; phosphide