Stability of the perovskite structure and possibility of the transition to the post-perovskite structure in CaSiO3, FeSiO3, MnSiO3 and CoSiO3

High pressure and high temperature experiments on CaSiO3, FeSiO3, MnSiO3 and CoSiO3 using a laser-heated diamond anvil cell combined with synchrotron X-ray diffraction were conducted to explore the perovskite structure of these compounds and the transition to the post-perovskite structure. The experimental results revealed that MnSiO3 has a perovskite structure from relatively low pressure (ca. 20 GPa) similarly to CaSiO3, while the stable forms of FeSiO3 and CoSiO3 are mixtures of mono-oxide (NaCl structure) + high pressure polymorph of SiO2 even at very high pressure and temperature (149 GPa and 1800 K for FeSiO3 and 79 GPa and 2000 K for CoSiO3). This strongly suggests that the crystal field stabilization energy (CFSE) of Fe2+ with six 3d electrons and Co2+ with seven 3d electrons at the octahedral site of mono-oxides favors a mixture of mono-oxide + SiO2 over perovskite where Fe2+ and Co2+ would occupy the distorted dodecahedral sites having a smaller CFSE (Mn2+ has five 3d electrons and has no CFSE). The structural characteristics that the orthorhombic distortion of MnSiO3 perovskite decreases with pressure and the tolerance factor of CaSiO3 perovskite (0.99) is far from the orthorhombic range suggest that both MnSiO3 and CaSiO3 perovskites will not transform to the CaIrO3-type post-perovskite structure even at the Earth's core–mantle boundary conditions, although CaSiO3 perovskite has a potentiality to transform to the CaIrO3-type post-perovskite structure at still higher pressure as long as another type of transformation does not occur.