Ultracondensed Matter by Dynamic Compression

Abstract

Dynamic compression is an experimental technique with interdisciplinary uses, ranging from enabling the creation of ultracondensed matter under previously impossible conditions to understanding the likely cause of unusual planetary magnetic fields. Readers can now gain an intuitive understanding of dynamic compression; clear and authoritative chapters examine its history and experimental method, as well as key topics including dynamic compression of liquid hydrogen, rare gas fluids and shock-induced opacity. Through an up-to-date history of dynamic compression research, Nellis also clearly shows how dynamic compression addresses and will continue to address major unanswered questions across the scientific disciplines. The past and future role of dynamic compression in studying and making materials at extreme conditions of pressure, density and temperature is made clear, and the means of doing so are explained in practical language perfectly suited for researchers and graduate students alike.

A perspective on conventional high-temperature superconductors at high pressure: Methods and materials

“…These have introduced a large array of characterization techniques and transformed the DAC from an exotic device, available only in a handful of centers world-wide, to a universal tool accessible to standard laboratories. By the year 2000s, pressures up to 200 GPa could be reached routinely and a number of applications had been published, improving significantly our understanding of matter under extreme compression [50,51] One of the first accomplishment of systematic investigations at high pressure has been to map the structural phase transformation and emergence of superconductivity in elements under strong compression [52,53,54,55]. Among the first studies showing that the rules of chemistry change with applied pressure in unexpected ways, was the study of a simple diatomic molecules, oxygen, which was of particular interest because it shows magnetism at low temperatures.…”

Melting and refreezing of zirconium observed using ultrafast x-ray diffraction

“…Detailed knowledge of these mechanisms (and the ability to control them) has the potential to revolutionize how we view melting and freezing as well as applications, such as material synthesis of metallic glasses [6,7]. Since equilibration of metals upon rapid compression occurs on the timescale of the lattice vibrations, traditional long timescale (1-10-ns) compression experiments [8] cannot observe the melting transition mechanisms which are fundamentally a picosecond phenomena. More recently, several groups have looked at the melting of Al [9], Bi [10], and Sc [11] using a >10-ns laser.…”

“…Dynamic compression experiments [8], typically require timescales of several nanoseconds to ensure equilibration. Our fast compression experiments conducted at the LCLS Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) employed uniaxial compression, which accesses far-from-equilibrium mechanical states under extreme shear stress.…”

Observation of Fundamental Mechanisms in Compression-Induced Phase Transformations Using Ultrafast X-ray Diffraction

“…This resulted in peak pressures ranging from 10-100 GPa in the Al, corresponding to 13-130 GPa in the Zr, which is obtained by shock impedance matching with the Al ablator. [37] Full sets of diffraction patterns for the 4 lower energies are shown in Figures S5-S8 in the supplemental information. A discussion of the Zr diffraction pattern and implications of microstructure is included in the supplemental materials "Sample Characterization" section.…”