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Diamond

Molten under pressure

Nature Physics volume 6, pages 9–10 (2010)Cite this article

Shockwaves driven by intense laser pulses allow the phase diagram of diamond to be extended up to pressures of 40 megabars and temperatures of 50,000 K. The results could help us better understand the material properties of the core of giant planets within and beyond our Solar System.

Diamond is one of the most remarkable materials in nature. It is the hardest material known. It is optically transparent at wavelengths ranging from the ultraviolet to the infrared. Although it is a wide-bandgap electrical insulator it has the highest thermal conductivity. Yet it is not the most stable form of carbon under normal conditions and only forms naturally at high pressures and temperatures, such as those that occur deep in the Earth's crust. Moreover, unlike most materials, when diamond is heated it usually doesn't melt but transforms to graphite and then eventually sublimes directly to gas. Only at incredibly high pressures is diamond able to form a stable liquid phase. Consequently, relatively little is known about the shape of its melting line — the locus on a pressure versus temperature phase diagram between its solid and liquid states. As reported1 in Nature Physics, to fill the gaps in the melting line Eggert et al. use a high-energy pulsed laser to shock, compress and heat diamond, and thereby explore its melting curve at extraordinary pressures of up to 40 megabars and temperatures up to 50,000 K.

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References

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  1. Isaac Silvera is in the Department of Physics, 17 Oxford Street, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. silvera@physics.harvard.edu,

    Isaac Silvera

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Silvera, I. Molten under pressure. Nature Phys 6, 9–10 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1491

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1491

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