A quest for super dense aluminium
Abstract
The extreme pressure phase diagram of materials is important not only for understanding the interiors of planets or stars, but also for the fundamental understanding of the relation between crystal structure and electronic structure. Structural transitions induced by extreme pressure are governed by the deformation of valence electron charge density which bears the brunt of increasing compression while the relative volume occupied by the nearly incompressible ionic core electrons increases. At extreme pressures common materials are expected to transform into new dense phases with extremely compact atomic arrangements that may also have unusual physical properties. In this report, we present new experiments carried out on aluminium. A simple system like Al is not only important as a benchmark for theory, but can also be used as a standard for pressures in the TPa range and beyond which are targeted at new dynamic compression facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US or Laser Mégajoule (LMJ) in Bordeaux in France. For aluminium, first principle calculations have consistently predicted a phase transition sequence from fcc to hcp and hcp to bcc in a pressure range below 0.5 TPa [Tambe et al., Phys. Rev. B 77, 172102, 2008]. The hcp phase was identified at 217 GPa in a recent experiment [Akahama et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 45505, 2006] but the detection of the predicted bcc phase has been hampered by the difficulty of routine static high pressure experiments beyond 350 GPa. Here, we report on the overcoming of this obstacle and the detection of all the structural phase transitions predicted in Al by achieving a pressure in excess of 500 GPa in the static regime in a diamond-anvil cell. In particular, using X-ray diffraction at the high-pressure beamline ID27 at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), we find a bcc super-dense phase of aluminium at a pressure of 380 GPa. In this report, we provide detailed information on this phase transition as well as details on how to achieve controlled static experiments in the range 3 to 5 Mbar.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUFMMR31A2258F
- Keywords:
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- 3924 MINERAL PHYSICS High-pressure behavior;
- 3954 MINERAL PHYSICS X-ray;
- neutron;
- and electron spectroscopy and diffraction;
- 3994 MINERAL PHYSICS Instruments and techniques