Melting Curve and Isostructural Solid Transition in Superionic Ice.

The phase diagram and melting curve of water ice is investigated up to 45 GPa and 1600 K by synchrotron x-ray diffraction in the resistively and laser heated diamond anvil cell. Our melting data evidence a triple point at 14.6 GPa, 850 K. The latter is shown to be related to a first-order solid transition from the dynamically disordered form of ice VII, denoted ice ${\mathrm{VII}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$, toward a high-temperature phase with the same bcc oxygen lattice but larger volume and higher entropy. Our experiments are compared to ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, enabling us to identify the high-temperature bcc phase with the predicted superionic ice ${\mathrm{VII}}^{\ensuremath{'}\ensuremath{'}}$ phase [J.-A. Hernandez and R. Caracas, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 135503 (2016).].