High-pressure and high-temperature stability field of hydrous phase delta-AlOOH

Stability field of hydrous phases is a key for understanding water concentration in the earth's mantle. δ-AlOOH is a high-pressure polymorph of diaspore (α-AlOOH) and boehmite (γ-AlOOH). The space group of this phase is Pnn2 and it is similar to CaCl2-type SiO2 which is a high-pressure polymorph of stishovite; edge-sharing Al-O octahedra make single-chain along c-axis. Although it has a large stability field in pressure range from 18 GPa to 32 GPa and temperature of up to 1473 K, the high-pressure stability limits has not yet clarified. In this study, we investigated the stability field of δ-AlOOH up to 130 GPa. The high-pressure experiments were performed using a laser-heated diamond-anvil cell. Starting material was gibbsite (Al(OH)3) powder mixed with platinum black as a laser absorber. The sample was sandwiched by pure gibbsite layers and loaded into a rhenium gasket. Pressures were measured with ruby-fluorescence technique before and after heating. The sample was heated from both sides by a Nd:YAG laser operated in multimode. After experiment, stable phase in each condition was determined using the X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy method. We also conducted in-situ X-ray diffraction experiments under high-pressure and temperature conditions together with the X-ray diffraction of the recovered samples both at BL10XU in SPring-8 and BL-13A in Photon Factory. In these runs, pressures were also calculated using the equation of state of platinum. The experimental conditions were in the pressures between 50-130 GPa and temperatures to 1800 K. X-ray analysis shows the sample recovered from the pressure and temperature range from 40 GPa and 1577 K to 130 GPa and 1800 K consists of δ-AlOOH. In the in-situ experiments, crystallization of δ-AlOOH was observed at 65 GPa and 1300 K and it was stable up to 1700 K. δ-AlOOH is stable in the large pressure range with a dehydration temperature around 1800K. It can be a water reservoir in subducting slabs in the deep lower mantle conditions beyond the dehydration conditions of the other hydrous phases such as dense hydrous magnesium silicates.