https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2011-01423-2
Regular Article
Metallic liquid hydrogen and likely Al2O3 metallic glass
Department of Physics, Harvard University, 17 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Received:
1
December
2010
Revised:
13
April
2011
Published online:
30
May
2011
Dynamic compression has been used to synthesize liquid metallic hydrogen at 140 GPa (1.4 million bar) and experimental data and theory predict Al2O3 might be a metallic glass at ∼ 300 GPa. The mechanism of metallization in both cases is probably a Mott-like transition. The strength of sapphire causes shock dissipation to be split differently in the strong solid and soft fluid. Once the 4.5-eV H-H and Al-O bonds are broken at sufficiently high pressures in liquid H2 and in sapphire (single-crystal Al2O3), electrons are delocalized, which leads to formation of energy bands in fluid H and probably in amorphous Al2O3. The high strength of sapphire causes shock dissipation to be absorbed primarily in entropy up to ∼400 GPa, which also causes the 300-K isotherm and Hugoniot to be virtually coincident in this pressure range. Above ∼400 GPa shock dissipation must go primarily into temperature, which is observed experimentally as a rapid increase in shock pressure above ∼400 GPa. The metallization of glassy Al2O3, if verified, is expected to be general in strong oxide insulators. Implications for Super Earths are discussed.
© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag, 2011