Persistence of Jahn-Teller distortion up to the insulator to metal transition in LaMnO3

High pressure, low temperature Raman measurements performed on LaMnO3 up to 34 GPa provide the first experimental evidence for the persistence of the Jahn-Teller distortion over the entire stability range of the insulating phase. This result resolves the ongoing debate about the nature of the pressure driven insulator to metal transition (IMT), demonstrating that LaMnO3 is not a classical Mott insulator. The formation of domains of distorted and regular octahedra, observed from 3 to 34 GPa, sheds new light on the mechanism behind the IMT suggesting that LaMnO3 becomes metallic when the fraction of undistorted octahedra domains increases beyond a critical threshold.