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Title

Evidence of superdense aluminium synthesized by ultrafast microexplosion

Author(s)

Vailionis, Arturas;  Gamaly, Eugene G.;  Mizeikis, Vygantas;  Yang, Wenge;  Rode, Andrei V.;  Juodkazis, Saulius

Abstract

At extreme pressures and temperatures, such as those inside planets and stars, common materials form new dense phases with compacted atomic arrangements and unusual physical properties. The synthesis and study of new phases of matter at pressures above 100GPa and temperatures above 10 4 K - warm dense matter - may reveal the functional details of planet and star interiors, and may lead to materials with extraordinary properties. Many phases have been predicted theoretically that may be realized once appropriate formation conditions are found. Here we report the synthesis of a superdense stable phase of body-centredcubic aluminium, predicted by first-principles theories to exist at pressures above 380GPa. The superdense Al phase was synthesized in the non-equilibrium conditions of an ultrafast laser-induced microexplosion confined inside sapphire (α-Al2o3). Confined microexplosions offer a strategy to create and recover high-density polymorphs, and a simple method for tabletop study of warm dense matter.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences. Centre for Micro-Photonics

Source

Nature Communications, Vol. 2 (Aug 2011), article no. 445

Publication year

2011

Keyword(s)

Microexplosions;  Pressures;  Superdense aluminium;  Temperatures;  Ultrafast lasers

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

ISSN

2041-1723

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1449

Copyright

Copyright © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).

Additional information

The authors acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council through the Discovery program.

Full text

Peer reviewed