Thursday, March 5, in ETRL 101 from 11 a.m. to Noon. Presented by Dr. Choong-Shik Yoo, Department of Chemistry, Institute for Shock Physics, and Materials Science and Engineering, WSU.
High-pressure research, static or dynamic alike, provides “windows” to novel states, transformations, and properties of those highly compressed extended states of light elemental solids that may constitute the giant planets and stars. These low-Z extended solids are extremely hard, have high energy density, and exhibit novel electronic and nonlinear optical properties — superior to other known materials at ambient conditions. However, these materials are often formed at formidably high pressures and are highly metastable at ambient conditions; only a few systems have been recovered, limiting the materials to the realm of fundamental scientific discovery. An exciting new research area has recently emerged that aims to understand and, ultimately, control the stability, bonding, structure, and properties of low Z extended solids. In this talk, I will discuss about the basic principles governing the pressure-induced transformations in dense solids and describe our recent research efforts to develop new materials and metastable structures utilizing solid mixtures and kinetic controlled processes at high pressures, as well as the chemistry of laser ablated metal plasma under extreme temperatures.
