Abstract
Lithium, the lightest metal, has long been considered to have a ‘simple’ electronic structure that can be well explained within the nearly-free-electron model. But lithium does not stay ‘simple’ under compression: rather than becoming more free-electron-like as pressure is increased, first-principles calculations1,2 suggest that it transforms into a semi-metal or semiconductor. Experimentally, it has been shown that dense lithium adopts low-symmetry structures3,4; there is also evidence that its resistivity increases with pressure5,6,7,8. However, the electronic transport properties of lithium have so far not been directly monitored as a function of increasing static pressure. Here we report electrical resistance measurements on lithium in a diamond anvil cell up to pressures of 105 GPa, which reveal a significant increase in electrical resistivity and a change in its temperature dependence near 80 GPa. Our data thus provide unambiguous experimental evidence for a pressure-induced metal-to-semiconductor transition in a ‘simple’ metallic element.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Neaton, J. B. & Ashcroft, N. W. Pairing in dense lithium. Nature 400, 141–144 (1999)
Christensen, N. E. & Novikov, D. L. High-pressure phases of the alkali metals. Solid State Commun. 119, 477–490 (2001)
Hanfland, M., Syassen, K., Christensen, N. E. & Novikov, D. L. New high-pressure phase of lithium. Nature 408, 174–178 (2000)
Matsuoka, T. et al. Superconductivity and crystal structure of lithium under high pressure. J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 121, 052003 (2008)
Stager, R. A. & Drickamer, H. G. Effect of temperature and pressure on the resistance of four alkali metals. Phys. Rev. 132, 124–127 (1963)
Lin, T. H. & Dunn, K. J. High-pressure and low-temperature study of electrical resistance of lithium. Phys. Rev. B 33, 807–811 (1986)
Fortov, V. E. et al. Anomalous electric conductivity of lithium under quasiisentropic compression to 60 GPa (0.6 Mbar). Transition into a molecular phase? JETP Lett. 70, 628–632 (1999)
Bastea, M. & Bastea, S. Electrical conductivity of lithium at megabar pressures. Phys. Rev. B 65, 193104 (2002)
Mori, Y., Zha, C. & Ruoff, A. L. in Science and Technology of High Pressure (eds Manghani, M. H., Nellis, W. J. & Nicol, M. F.) 421–424 (Univ. Press India, 2000)
Goncharov, A. F., Struzhkin, V. V., Mao, H. K. & Hemley, R. J. Spectroscopic evidence for broken-symmetry transitions in dense lithium up to megabar pressures. Phys. Rev. B 74, 184114 (2005)
Rousseau, R., Uehara, K., Klug, D. D. & Tse, J. S. Symmetry transition of elemental lithium up to 140 GPa. ChemPhysChem 6, 1703–1706 (2005)
Ma, Y., Oganov, A. R. & Xie, Y. High-pressure structures of lithium, potassium, and rubidium predicted by an ab initio evolutionary algorithm. Phys. Rev. B 78, 014102 (2008)
Shimizu, K., Ishikawa, H., Takao, D., Yagi, T. & Amaya, K. Superconductivity in compressed lithium at 20 K. Nature 419, 597–599 (2002)
Cottrell, A. H. An Introduction to Metallurgy 2nd ed. (Maney Publishing, London, 1997)
Overhauser, A. W. Crystal structure of lithium at 4.2 K. Phys. Rev. Lett. 53, 64–65 (1984)
Vaks, V. G. et al. An experimental and theoretical study of martensitic phase transitions in Li and Na under pressure. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 1, 5319–5335 (1989)
Smith, H. G., Berliner, R., Jorgensen, J. D., Nielsen, M. & Trivisonno, J. Pressure effects on the martensitic transformation in metallic lithium. Phys. Rev. B 41, 1231–1234 (1990)
Hanfland, M., Loa, I., Syassen, K., Schwarz, U. & Takemura, K. Equation of state of lithium to 21 GPa. Solid State Commun. 112, 123–127 (1999)
Struzhkin, V. V., Eremets, M. I., Gan, W., Mao, H. K. & Hemley, R. J. Superconductivity in dense lithium. Science 298, 1213–1215 (2002)
Deemyad, S. & Schilling, J. S. Superconducting phase diagram of Li metal in nearly hydrostatic pressures up to 67 GPa. Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 167001 (2003)
Akahama, Y. & Kawamura, H. High-pressure Raman spectroscopy of diamond anvils to 250 GPa: Method for pressure determination in the multimegabar pressure range. J. Appl. Phys. 96, 3748–3751 (2004)
Mao, H. K., Xu, J. & Bell, P. M. Calibration of the ruby pressure gauge to 800 kbar under hydrostatic conditions. J. Geophys. Res. 91, 4673–4676 (1986)
Acknowledgements
We thank N. W. Ashcroft and J. S. Schilling for discussions. This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S), 19104009 and Global COE Program (Core Research and Engineering of Advanced Materials-Interdisciplinary Education Center for Materials Science), MEXT, Japan, and a Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows (19·52753). We acknowledge J. Tse, Y. Yao and D. Klug for discussions and suggestions.
Author Contributions T. M. and K. S. performed the experiments and analysed the data. Both authors wrote the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
This file contains a Supplementary Discussion and Supplementary Figures S1 with Legend (PDF 566 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Matsuoka, T., Shimizu, K. Direct observation of a pressure-induced metal-to-semiconductor transition in lithium. Nature 458, 186–189 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07827
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07827
This article is cited by
-
Data-driven prediction of complex crystal structures of dense lithium
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Creating superconductivity in WB2 through pressure-induced metastable planar defects
Nature Communications (2022)
-
Materials under high pressure: a chemical perspective
Applied Physics A (2022)
-
A continuous metal-insulator transition driven by spin correlations
Nature Communications (2021)
-
Chemistry under high pressure
Nature Reviews Chemistry (2020)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.