Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

High density hydrogen research

Conference ·
OSTI ID:7303770
The interest in the properties of very dense hydrogen is prompted by its abundance in Saturn and Jupiter and its importance in laser fusion studies. Furthermore, it has been proposed that the metallic form of hydrogen may be a superconductor at relatively high temperatures and/or exist in a metastable phase at ambient pressure. For ten years or more, laboratories have been developing the techniques to study hydrogen in the megabar region (1 megabar = 100 GPa). Three major approaches to study dense hydrogen experimentally have been used, static presses, shockwave compression, and magnetic compression. Static tchniques have crossed the megabar threshold in stiff materials but have not yet been convincingly successful in very compressible hydrogen. Single and double shockwave techniques have improved the precision of the pressure, volume, temperature Equation of State (EOS) of molecular hydrogen (deuterium) up to near 1 Mbar. Multiple shockwave and magnetic techniques have compressed hydrogen to several megabars and densities in the range of the metallic phase. The net result is that hydrogen becomes conducting at a pressure between 2 and 4 megabars. Hence, the possibility of making a significant amount of hydrogen into a metal in a static press remains a formidable challenge. The success of such experiments will hopefully answer the questions about hydrogen's metallic vs. conducting molecular phase, superconductivity, and metastability. 4 figures, 15 references.
Research Organization:
California Univ., Livermore (USA). Lawrence Livermore Lab.
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
7303770
Report Number(s):
UCRL-79634; CONF-770811-1
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English