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A milestone in the hunt for metallic hydrogen

An optical study of cold solid hydrogen at extreme pressures indicates that electrons in the material are free to move like those in a metal. This suggests that the long-sought metallic phase of hydrogen might have been realized.
  1. Serge Desgreniers

    1. Serge Desgreniers is in the Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada.

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Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe. Its molecular-gas state is simple, but its solid state has proved to be complex. In 1935, it was predicted that solid hydrogen should behave like an electrical conductor at elevated pressures, owing to its molecules being separated into their atomic constituents1. This prediction heralded a race to prove experimentally that solid hydrogen displays such metallic behaviour under ultrahigh compression. However, although there have been many claims of proof (for example, refs 2–4), these studies have been challenged. Now, writing in Nature, Loubeyre et al.5 report that dense hydrogen shows a discontinuous and reversible change in optical reflectivity at extreme pressure and low temperature that can be attributed to a phase transition into a metallic state.

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Nature 577, 626-627 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00149-7

References

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