A Metastable Liquid Melted from a Crystalline Solid Under Decompression

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2017 Jan 24

PMID 28112152

Citations 6

Authors

Chuanlong Lin

Jesse S Smith

Stanislav V Sinogeikin

Yoshio Kono

Changyong Park

Curtis Kenney-Benson

Guoyin Shen

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

A metastable liquid may exist under supercooling, sustaining the liquid below the melting point such as supercooled water and silicon. It may also exist as a transient state in solid-solid transitions, as demonstrated in recent studies of colloidal particles and glass-forming metallic systems. One important question is whether a crystalline solid may directly melt into a sustainable metastable liquid. By thermal heating, a crystalline solid will always melt into a liquid above the melting point. Here we report that a high-pressure crystalline phase of bismuth can melt into a metastable liquid below the melting line through a decompression process. The decompression-induced metastable liquid can be maintained for hours in static conditions, and transform to crystalline phases when external perturbations, such as heating and cooling, are applied. It occurs in the pressure-temperature region similar to where the supercooled liquid Bi is observed. Akin to supercooled liquid, the pressure-induced metastable liquid may be more ubiquitous than we thought.

Citing Articles

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Experimental evidence of low-density liquid water upon rapid decompression.

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