Ultrahigh-pressure transitions in solid hydrogen

Abstract

During the past five years, major progress has been made in the experimental study of solid hydrogen at ultrahigh pressures as a result of developments in diamond-cell technology. Pressures at which metallization has been predicted to occur have been reached (250-300 Gigapascals). Detailed studies of the dynamic, structural, and electronic properties of dense hydrogen reveal a system unexpectedly rich in physical phenomena, exhibiting a variety of transitions at ultrahigh pressures. This colloquium explores the study of dense hydrogen as an archetypal problem in condensed-matter physics.