Research on Advanced Functional Materials at High Pressures
Material Physics and Technology at Extreme Conditions, UniversitÀt Bayreuth, Germany
Guest Professor at Linköpings UniversitÀt, Sweden
E-mail: Natalia.Dubrovinskaia@uni-bayreuth.de
Abstract
The state of matter is strongly affected by variations in its chemical composition and the external parameters, such as pressure and temperature, allowing tuning of materials properties. This gives rise to a variety of phenomena relevant for a broad range of scientific disciplines and technological applications, from fundamental understanding of the Universe to targeted design of advanced materials. Compression is known to endorse, for example, metal-to-insulator transitions, superconductivity, and other interesting phenomena. To generate very high static pressures, we use an instrument which is called a diamond anvil cell (DAC), in which the material under investigation is squeezed between very small flat tips of two gem quality diamonds â diamond anvils. Due to extremely high compressional strength of diamond, pressures up to 200 GPa can be achieved on the sample. Our group has extended the static pressure range for materials investigations up to 1TPa (10 million atmospheres) due to our invention of a double-stage DAC.
In our research at high and ultra-high pressures, we not only synthesize novel, often unpredictable, materials and study their structures using synchrotron single-crystal X-ray diffraction, but also try to understand the physical phenomena underlying their formation, chemical bonding, and properties. In this talk I will focus on recent results achieved in a very close collaboration with Professor Igor Abrikosov and his theoretical group at Linköpings UniversitĂ€t. In particular, the synthesis and characterisation of a Dirac material (layered van der Waals bonded BeNâ polymorph) and a whole plethora of novel transition metals borides, nitrides and polynitrides, including metal-inorganic frameworks HfâNâââ
Nâ, WNââ
Nâ, and Osâ
Nâââ
3Nâ with polymeric nitrogen linkers (a new class of compounds featuring open porous structures at megabar compression) will be discussed. Selected references are provided below.
Acknowledgments
I thank the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (Grant No. 05K19WC1), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG Projects No. DU 954â11/1) and the Swedish Government Strategic Research Areas in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linköping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU No. 2009 00971).
Selected references
1) L. Dubrovinsky, S. Khandarkhaeva, T. Fedotenko, D. Laniel, M. Bykov, C. Giacobbe, E. L. Bright, P. Sedmak, S. Chariton, V. Prakapenka, A. V. Ponomareva, E. A. Smirnova, Maxim P. Belov, F. TasnĂĄdi, N. Shulumba, F. Trybel, I. A. Abrikosov, N. Dubrovinskaia. Materials synthesis at terapascal static pressures. Nature (2022), 605, 274-278. doi:10.1038/s41586-022-04550-2
2) A. Aslandukov, F. Trybel, A. Aslandukova, D. Laniel, T. Fedotenko, S. Khandarkhaeva, G. Aprilis, C. Giacobbe, E.L. Bright, I. A. Abrikosov, L. Dubrovinsky, N. Dubrovinskaia. Anionic N18 Macrocycles and a Polynitrogen Double Helix in Novel Yttrium Polynitrides YN6 and Y2N11 at 100 GPa. Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2022), in press.
3) E. Bykova, E. Johansson, M. Bykov, S. Chariton, H. Fei, S.V. Ovsyannikov, A. Aslandukova, S. Gabel, H. Holz, B. Merle, B. Alling, I.A. Abrikosov, J.S. Smith, V.B. Prakapenka, T. Katsura, N. Dubrovinskaia, A.F. Goncharov, L. Dubrovinsky. Novel Class of Rhenium Borides Based on Hexagonal Boron Networks Interconnected by Short B2 Dumbbells. Special edition of the Journal of Materials Chemistry A âEmerging investigatorsâ (2022), in press.
4) M. Bykov, T. Fedotenko, S. Chariton, D. Laniel, K. Glazyrin, M. Hanfland, J. S. Smith, V. B. Prakapenka, M. F. Mahmood, A. F. Goncharov, Alena V. Ponomareva, Ferenc TasnĂĄdi, A. I. Abrikosov, T. B. Masood, I. Hotz, A. N. Rudenko, M. I. Katsnelson, N. Dubrovinskaia, L. Dubrovinsky, I. A. Abrikosov: High-Pressure Synthesis of Dirac Materials: Layered van der Waals Bonded BeNâ Polymorph. Physical Review Letters, 126 (2021). doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.175501
5) M. Bykov, S. Chariton, E. Bykova, S. Khandarkhaeva, T. Fedotenko, A. V. Ponomareva, J. Tidholm, F. TasnĂĄdi, I. A. Abrikosov, P. Sedmak, V. Prakapenka, M. Hanfland, H.-P. Liermann, M. Mahmood, A. F. Goncharov, N. Dubrovinskaia, L. Dubrovinsky. High-Pressure Synthesis of Metal-Inorganic Frameworks HfâNâââ
Nâ, WNââ
Nâ, and Osâ
Nâââ
3Nâ with Polymeric Nitrogen Linkers. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 59 (2020). - S. 10321-10326, doi:10.1002/anie.202002487.
6) M. Bykov, S. Chariton, H. Fei, T. Fedotenko, G. Aprilis, A. V. Ponomareva, F. TasnĂĄdi, I. A. Abrikosov, B. Merle, P. Feldner, S. Vogel, W. Schnick, V. B. Prakapenka, E. Greenberg, M. Hanfland, A. Pakhomova, H.-P. Liermann, T. Katsura, N. Dubrovinskaia, L. Dubrovinsky. High-pressure synthesis of ultraincompressible hard rhenium nitride pernitride Reâ(Nâ)(N)â stable at ambient conditions. Nature Communications, 10 (2019). doi:10.1038/s41467-019-10995-3