Volumes of virtual modifications and virtual polymorphous transformations in transition metals under pressure

To find out what phases are likely to occur under pressure, it is necessary to know the relative density of various modifications, that is the ratio of the volumes of stable and virtual modifications and generally speaking the ratio of the phase compressibility. If the virtual phase volume is less than the volume of the stable phase, then such a phase is likely to appear under pressure. A method has been developed for computing the volumes of the virtual modifications from the data on the solid solutions lattice parameters. Testing the applicability of the method for a number of systems with a complete mutual solubility has shown, that the method proposed permits to estimate the volumes of the transition metals virtual modifications with the error probably not exceeding 1%. The analysis was made of the data available on the solid solutions of transition metals with fcc-, bcc- and hcp-lattices. The virtual volumes have been computed for hcp-iridium, hcp-rhodium, hcp-molybdenum, fcc-molybdenum, fcc-chromium, bcc-rhenium, bcc-ruthenium and bcc-technetium. The data obtained on the virtual modifications volumes permit to assume that the pressure increase is likely to result in the phase transformations of fcc-hcp in iridium and rhodium, and bcc-hcp in molybdenum, while evidently the transformations of bcc-fcc in molybdenum and chromium, hcp-bcc in technetium, rhenium and ruthenium are impossible. The pressure resulting in the transformations in the metals investigated equals approximately hundreds of kbar, or even approximately 1 Mbar for Ir