Temperature-dependent pressure-induced softening in Zn(CN)$_{2}$

TL;DR

This study explores how temperature influences pressure-induced softening in Zn(CN)$_{2}$, revealing it only occurs above a certain temperature and diminishes at higher temperatures through experiments and simulations.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the temperature dependence of pressure-induced softening in a negative thermal expansion material using combined experimental and computational methods.

Findings

Pressure-induced softening occurs only above a minimum temperature.

Softening weakens at higher temperatures.

Both experiments and simulations agree on temperature dependence.

Abstract

We investigate the temperature dependence of the pressure-induced softening in the negative thermal expansion material Zn(CN)$_2$ using neutron powder diffraction and molecular dynamics simulations. Both the simulation and experiment show that the pressure-induced softening only occurs above a minimum temperature and also weakens at high temperatures.