Fig. 3: Pressure-temperature phase diagram of IrTe₂ as deduced from the present x-ray diffraction data.

Starting from the trigonal phase without dimers, a metastability region is entered upon increasing pressure. In this region, different ordered phases appear and sometimes coexist. With further increasing pressure, the long-ranged ordered q = 1/6-phase is reached, which remains stable up to 42 GPa. Three samples have been measured at different temperatures as a function of increasing pressure, as indicated by the dashed paths I, II, and III. Red crosses indicate points where full single crystal diffraction data sets have been recorded. Orange stars indicate points where the phase boundary has been observed in an overview scan, i.e., one detector image recorded during a ω-rotation over ±31^∘.