High Pressure Materials Research: Novel Extended Phases of Molecular Triatomics
Application of high pressure significantly alters the interatomic distance and thus the nature of intermolecular interaction, chemical bonding, molecular configuration, crystal structure, and stability of solid [1]. With modern advances in high-pressure technologies [2], it is feasible to achieve a large (often up to a several-fold) compression of lattice, at which condition material can be easily forced into a new physical and chemical configuration [3]. The high-pressure thus offers enhanced opportunities to discover new phases, both stable and metastable ones, and to tune exotic properties in a wide-range of atomistic length scale, substantially greater than (often being several orders of) those achieved by other thermal (varying temperatures) and chemical (varying composition or making alloys) means. Simple molecular solids like H{sub 2}, C, CO{sub 2}, N{sub 2}, O{sub 2}, H{sub 2}O, CO, NH{sub 3}, and CH{sub 4} are bounded by strong covalent intramolecular bonds, yet relatively weak intermolecular bonds of van der Waals and/or hydrogen bonds. The weak intermolecular bonds make these solids highly compressible (i.e., low bulk moduli typically less than 10 GPa), while the strong covalent bonds make them chemically inert at least initially at low pressures. Carbon-carbon single bonds, carbon-oxygen double bonds and nitrogen-nitrogen triple bonds, for example, are among the strongest. These molecular forms are, thus, often considered to remain stable in an extended region of high pressures and high temperatures. High stabilities of these covalent molecules are also the basis of which their mixtures are often presumed to be the major detonation products of energetic materials as well as the major constituents of giant planets. However, their physical/chemical stabilities are not truly understood at those extreme pressure-temperature conditions. In fact, an increasing amount of experimental evidences contradict the assumed stability of these materials at high pressures and temperatures.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 883842
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-BOOK-204442; TRN: US200615%%290
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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