Crystal structure as an intergral property of physical properties of materials is a key factor responsible for its behavior, including i.a. anisotropy of transport, magnetic and other physical properties.
For fine tuning of the lattice parameters either chemical way (substitution) or mechanical approach (pressure) can be used. In the case of application of pressure one can be sure about the conservation of the sample purity and overall number of electrons which keeps the lattice changes to be considered as the only factor responsible for the observed changes of physical behavior.
Pressure-induced effects on electronic properties of materials are subject of experimental approach by means of transport and magnetic measurements in our laboratories for some time already. Besides observation of electronic changes with pressure, knowledge of corresponding reaction of the lattice on the applied pressure is a necessary aspect to complete the picture about the origin of the physical properties. Crystal structure can be studied under pressure using diamond anvil cells (DAC) properly positioned in the X-ray beam. Such a pressure cell was added to the arsenal of our pressure equipment and in the past several months, a progressive steps were made promissing our future ability to get information about the pressure-induced crystal structure changes of the studied materials in our laboratory. First successful experiment was performed on a uranium-based phosphide UCu₂P₂ studied in the past years for its interesting magnetic properties. Although both the adjustment of the experimental setup and evaluation of the measured data are still far from ideal state and need to pass further improvement, in the recent stage we can estimate pressure dependence of the lattice parameters as the basic information about the crystal structure in the pressure range up to 20 GPa. Details of the recent high pressure XRD experiment on UCu₂P₂ will be presented on the seminar.