The common tetragonal form of KH2PO4 undergoes two high-temperature transformations
that have been studied extensively by vibrational spectroscopy. But, because these changes
are strikingly heterogeneous, the previously reported spectra, averages over polycrystalline
and single crystal domains, have remained ill-defined. We recently identified the crystalline
domains by polarization microscopy, physically isolated them, and determined their
structures by X-ray diffraction (Subramony, J. A.; Lovell, S.; Kahr, B. Chem.
Mater. 1998,
10, 2053−2057). Here, using micro-Raman spectroscopy, we have deconvoluted the signals
of the polycrystalline and crystalline domains, showing that the inescapable pyro- and
metaphosphate dehydration products are localized in the polycrystalline material. Those
debating whether the transformations are genuine structural phase transformations or are
merely dehydration reactions can all be vindicated in certain parts of any one sample.