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Nguyen-Cong K, Willman JT, Gonzalez JM, Williams AS, Belonoshko AB, Moore SG, Thompson AP, Wood MA, Eggert JH, Millot M, Zepeda-Ruiz LA, Oleynik II. Extreme Metastability of Diamond and its Transformation to the BC8 Post-Diamond Phase of Carbon. J Phys Chem Lett 2024; 15:1152-1160. [PMID: 38269426 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c03044] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/26/2024]
Abstract
Diamond possesses exceptional physical properties due to its remarkably strong carbon-carbon bonding, leading to significant resilience to structural transformations at very high pressures and temperatures. Despite several experimental attempts, synthesis and recovery of the theoretically predicted post-diamond BC8 phase remains elusive. Through quantum-accurate multimillion atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we have uncovered the extreme metastability of diamond at very high pressures, significantly exceeding its range of thermodynamic stability. We predict the post-diamond BC8 phase to be experimentally accessible only within a narrow high pressure-temperature region of the carbon phase diagram. The diamond to BC8 transformation proceeds through premelting followed by BC8 nucleation and growth in the metastable carbon liquid. We propose a double-shock compression pathway for BC8 synthesis, which is currently being explored in experiments at the National Ignition Facility.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kien Nguyen-Cong
- Department of Physics, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, United States
| | - Jonathan T Willman
- Department of Physics, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, United States
| | - Joseph M Gonzalez
- Department of Physics, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, United States
| | - Ashley S Williams
- Department of Physics, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, United States
| | | | - Stan G Moore
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185, United States
| | - Aidan P Thompson
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185, United States
| | - Mitchell A Wood
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185, United States
| | - Jon H Eggert
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, United States
| | - Marius Millot
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, United States
| | - Luis A Zepeda-Ruiz
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, United States
| | - Ivan I Oleynik
- Department of Physics, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, United States
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