A correlation between hydroxyl vibrations under compression and anharmonicity: glaucophane as a test case

The infrared hydroxyl bands and first hydroxyl combination bands of glaucophane are characterized under pressure. In this weakly hydrogen-bonded mineral, the anharmonicity parameter, as determined from the difference between combinations and the fundamentals, is nearly constant with pressure to 15 GPa, indicating that the ambient pressure value of hydroxyl-bond anharmonicity closely reflects its value at high pressures. Given this near-constancy, the Grüneisen parameters of the hydroxyl stretching vibrations of a wide range of minerals, as derived from the pressure dependence of their O–H stretching frequencies, are correlated with the anharmonic parameter of each vibration, as determined from the ambient pressure offset of the summed frequencies of the fundamental n = 0 to 1 transitions and the frequency of the hydroxyl combination or overtone band corresponding to the n = 0 to 2 transition. This correlation is motivated by (1) the anharmonic origin of the Grüneisen parameter; and (2) the grossly similar form of the interatomic potential governing weak- and medium-strength hydrogen bonding in many minerals. This possible correlation provides a means through which the likely pressure-induced hydroxyl mode shifts of phases might be estimated from ambient pressure near-infrared measurements and emphasizes the importance of near-infrared combination/overtone band measurements. In this context, the combination/overtone bands of high-pressure hydrous phases are almost completely uncharacterized, and thus one probe of their anharmonicity has been neglected. Such information directly constrains the nature of hydrogen bonding in these phases, and hence provides possible insights into both their retention of hydrogen and its mobility. Deviations from the anharmonicity-Grüneisen parameter correlation, when observed (as may be the case in prehnite), could provide insights into anomalous effects on the hydroxyl potential well induced by bifurcated H-bonds, pressure-dependent Davydov splitting, or the influence of neighboring cations.