Study of lattice dynamics of Fe2SiO4- and Mg2SiO4-spinels

Abstract

Fe2SiO4 is an end member of Mg-rich (Mg, Fe)2SiO4, which is believed to be a major mineral of the Earth's transition zone [1, 2]. The presence of iron has a pronounced effect on elastic and thermodynamic properties of rock-forming minerals. These properties play crucial role in the interpretation of the geophysical data and thus have a large influence on our knowledge of the earth's interior. An understanding of the elastic properties of silicate will be further helpful to the interpretation of seismological data, in particular the variation in the depth range of transition zone of earth's interior. The spinel form of magnesium-iron orthosilicate, (Mg, Fe)2SiO4, is believed to be one of the most abundant minerals in the mantle's transition zone and is found to be stable in ambient conditions and therefore, a detailed study of zone centre phonons of this stable phase of orthosilicates (Mg, Fe)2SiO4 is of high interest. Hence, in the present study, the zone centre phonons of antiferromagnetic Fe2SiO4-spinel and Mg2SiO4-spinel have been studied by using short range force constant model involving interatomic interactions upto first three neighbours. The zone centre phonons of Fe2SiO4 is compared with that of Mg2SiO4 in order to study the effect of the cation exchange on the dynamic and thermodynamic properties of (Mg, Fe)2SiO4-spinel. The calculated results are compared and analyzed with exiting experimental results.