Electrical resistance of single-crystal magnetite (Fe3O4) under quasi-hydrostatic pressures up to 100GPa

The pressure dependence of electrical resistance of single-crystal magnetite (Fe3O4) was measured under quasi-hydrostatic conditions to 100 GPa using low-temperature, megabar diamond-anvil cell techniques in order to gain insight into the anomalous behavior of this material that has been reported over the years in different high-pressure experiments. The measurements under nearly hydrostatic pressure conditions allowed us to detect the clear Verwey transition and the high-pressure structural phase. The appearance of a metallic ground state after the suppression of the Verwey transition around 20 GPa and the concomitant enhancement of the electrical resistance caused by the structural transformation to the high-pressure phase form reentrant semiconducting-metallic-semiconducting behavior, although the appearance of the metallic phase is highly sensitive to stress conditions and details of the measurement technique. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.