Volume compression of CuCl to 7 GPa

The unit cell volume of CuCl as a function of pressure has been measured up to 7 GPa (giga Pascals). The compression behaviour is quite normal. The analysis of the compression data gives 40·3±1·5 GPa for the bulk modulus of the zinc blende phase. The zinc blende phase transforms to a tetragonal phase at 5·5 GPa, the volume change associated with the transformation being 12%. A comparison of the bulk modulus of CuCl with those of CuBr and CuI indicates that an anomaly exists in this group.