Pressure-Induced Intermediate-to-Low Spin State Transition in LaCoO3

Synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction experiments reveal that the transition from a magnetic intermediate spin (IS) state to a nonmagnetic low-spin (LS) ground state in LaCoO3 normally observed when cooling, manifests itself under pressure by an anomalously low bulk compressibility of 150(2) GPa and an initially very large bond compressibility of 4.8e-3 GPa-1 which levels off near 4 GPa. The continuous depopulation of the IS state is driven by an increased crystal field splitting resulting in an effective reduction of the size of the Co3+ cation.