Electrical conductivity of hot expanded aluminum: Experimental measurements and<i>ab initio</i>calculations

Abstract

Experimental measurements and theoretical calculations of the electrical conductivity of aluminum are presented in the strongly coupled partially degenerate regime (rho=0.3 g/cm(3), 5000<T<15 000 K). The experiments were performed in an isochoric plasma closed vessel designed to confine electrical plasma discharges up to 1.5 GPa. Aluminum properties were determined theoretically by ab initio molecular dynamics simulations in the local density approximation, from which the conductivity was computed using the Kubo-Greenwood formula. The theoretical results were validated in the dense coupled regime against previously published experimental results and then applied to our experimental low density regime, showing that the theoretical results overestimate the experimental conductivities.