Nonviscous metallic liquid Se.
Viscosity is one of the fundamental physical properties of liquids; for different melts it varies in an extremely wide range. Selenium is among the first elementary substances to have manifested, at compression, a phase transformation in the liquid state accompanied by melt metallization. Direct measurements by means of a real-time radiography show that the viscosity of liquid Se under pressure drops by 500 times to a very low level of 8 mPa s. This is the first case of viscosity measurements being performed both for a relatively viscous semiconducting state and a low-viscous metallic state of the same liquid substance. The viscosity of the Se melt strongly decreases with pressure along the melting curve in a semiconducting state and experiences a further significant drop at melt metallization. A similar phenomenon is expected to be observed in many chalcohenide, halogenide, and oxide melts.
Brazhkin
V V
VV
Institute for High Pressure Physics RAS, 142190 Troitsk Moscow region, Russia. brazhkin@hppi.troitsk.ru
Funakoshi
K
K
Kanzaki
M
M
Katayama
Y
Y