Structural study of the pressure-induced metal-insulator transition in <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>Li</mml:mi><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">V</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">O</mml:mi><mml:mn>4</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>

At ambient pressure the spinel \mathrm{Li}{\mathrm{V}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{4}is a metal with a heavy fermion ground state. However, under applied pressure a transition to an insulating, nonmagnetic state occurs. Powder x-ray diffraction has been used to study structural changes associated with this transition, and reveals that the ambient-pressure Fd\overline{3}mspinel structure distorts to a monoclinic cell of C2/m,C2 or Cmsymmetry...