High Pressure

New materials

Post-Image

Figure 1: Synthesis and determination of the structure of FeH5. X-ray diffraction allowed measuring the position of Fe atoms in the structure; the positions hydrogen atoms, which are too light to be seen with X-ray diffraction, have been predicted using ab initio calculations. After C.M. Pépin et al., Synthesis of FeH5: A layered structure with atomic hydrogen slabs, Science 357, 6349 (2017)

New materials

Since the synthesis of diamond in the 1950’s, pressure is a tool to obtain new materials with outstanding properties: ultra-hard, superconducting, with high energy density which can be released on decomposition, with an enhanced stability… This can be modeled at different scales, from electronic to microstructural. It is also of fundamental interest to disclose new bonding which appear on high compression: insulators become metals, rare gases become reactive, etc. High-pressure materials engineering couples theoretical predictions and experimental synthesis, which we perform inside the laboratory and collaborating with large facilities and groups with complementary expertise.

Structure of the Hexagonal Layered Polymeric nitrogen solid showing the isosurface for the electron density of 1.01 el/Å3. After Laniel et al., Hexagonal Layered Polymeric Nitrogen Phase Synthesized near 250 GPa, Phys. Rev. Lett 122, 066001 (2019)

Figure 2:

Structure of the Hexagonal Layered Polymeric nitrogen solid showing the isosurface for the electron density of 1.01 el/Å3. After Laniel et al., Hexagonal Layered Polymeric Nitrogen Phase Synthesized near 250 GPa, Phys. Rev. Lett 122, 066001 (2019)

Publications

  1. C.M. Pépin, G. Geneste, A. Dewaele, M. Mezouar, P. Loubeyre, Synthesis of FeH5: A layered structure with atomic hydrogen slabs, Science 357, 6349 (2017) DOI
  2. D. Laniel, G. Weck, G. Gaiffe, G. Garbarino, and P. Loubeyre, High-Pressure Synthesized Lithium Pentazolate Compound Metastable under Ambient Conditions, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2018, 9, 7, 1600–1604 (2018) DOI
  3. D. Laniel, G. Geneste, G. Weck, M. Mezouar, P. Loubeyre, Hexagonal Layered Polymeric Nitrogen Phase Synthesized near 250 GPa, Phys. Rev. Lett 122, 066001 (2019) DOI
  4. A. Dewaele, N. Worth, CJ. Pickard, RJ. Needs, S. Pascarelli, O. Mathon, M. Mezouar and T. Irifune, Synthesis and stability of xenon oxides Xe2O5 and Xe3O2 under pressure, Nat. Chem. 8, 784 (2016) DOI
  5. D. Chaney et al., Tuneable correlated disorder in alloys, Phys. Rev. Mat. 5, 035005 (2021) DOI
  6. P. Lafourcade, C. Denoual, JB Maillet, Mesoscopic constitutive law with nonlinear elasticity and phase transformation for the twinning-buckling of TATB under dynamic loading, Phys. Rev. Mat. 3, 053610 (2019) DOI

Researchers involved

F. Bottin, C. Denoual, A. Dewaele, A. Forestier, G. Geneste, P. Lafourcade, P. Loubeyre, JB. Maillet, F. Occelli, C. Pépin, L. Toraille, M. Torrent, G. Weck