BONDING PROPERTIES OF TELLURIUM UNDER HIGH-PRESSURE FROM TE-125 MOSSBAUER STUDIES

High-pressure Te-125 Mossbauer experiments on elemental tellurium have been carried out at 77 K over a wide range of pressure up to 38 GPa. While the isomer shift barely increases with pressure, the quadrupolar splitting (QS) exhibits a strong pressure dependence. The decrease of QS with increasing pressure was attributed to the growing importance of interchain (interlayer) interactions in the hexagonal (monoclinic/o rthorhombic) phase. Our measurements suggest that the phase boundary b etween the metallic high-pressure beta-Po and bcc phases is shifted fr om 27 GPa at room temperature to about 35 GPa at 77 K. Our data confir m the first-order character of that structural transition. [S0163-1829 (98)02025-6].