seminaire serghiou

Séminaire George Serghiou (Edinbourgh, UK)

High pressure physics (0.1-1000 GPa) is a broad research field, which came out through
the last few decad and is now rapidly developing. I will give a short I will give a short
overview of some of the most relevant aspects of this broad topic, mainly focused on
simple systems. It will be first shown where extreme high pressure and temperature conditions
are encountered in the universe, and how these conditions can severely affect the physics
of dense materials, ultimately leading to intriguing phenomena such as
metallization in normally dielectric systems and P induced superconductivity in elemental
solids. I will briefly present on the high P phase diagram of some archetypical simple
systems such as H2, CO2, phosphorous, and alkaline metals which include P induced molecular
ordering, fluid-fluid phase transitions, polymerization, possible insulating-metal and metal
insulating phase transitions. I will then talk on the main tool which is nowadays used
for static high pressure experiments: the diamond anvil cell (DAC). Finally I will
touch the point of how the DAC can be coupled to high temperatures devices such as ovens and
laser heating set-up, as long as with characterization set up such as optical
spectroscopy and X-ray scattering apparatus.