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High pressure behaviour of liquid GeO2: a molecular dynamics study

High pressure behaviour of liquid GeO2 is investigated by means of molecular dynamics simulations in the pressure range 0-20 GPa and at various temperatures. In agreement with the recent experiments (PRL, 92, 155506, 2004), Ge-O coordination increases under compression. For 1650 K, at ~11.5 GPa the structure becomes 6 coordinated with a discontinuous change in the density. The transition from the low density liquid (LDL) to high density liquid (HDL) is found to be reversible and the transition pressure increases with the temperature. At lower temperatures, the low density to high density transition is found to be continuous, but with the coexistence of two structures.