Carnegie Institution of Washington

Carnegie Institution

News

July 11, 2003

Contact Russell Hemley at Carnegie’s Geophysical Laboratory, 202-478-8951, e-mail hemley@gl.ciw.edu; or Steve Gramsch, 202-478-8949, e-mail gramsch@gl.ciw.edu

Grant for Fundamental High-Pressure Research Awarded to Carnegie/DOE Alliance Center, Washington, D.C.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, NNSA, has awarded a $5.9-million, 2.75-year grant to the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., under the Stewardship Science Academic Alliances program. This grant will fund research into the behavior of materials under extreme pressure conditions at the Carnegie/Department of Energy Alliance Center* (CDAC).

NNSA selected CDAC because of the leadership of its team in the development of new techniques and capabilities in high-pressure and high-temperature materials research. As principal investigator for the grant, Dr. Russell Hemley of Carnegie explains: “There is a critical need to perform experiments that improve our understanding of the broad range of materials that have been used in the pursuit of national security. Our unique techniques are ideal for addressing these fundamental scientific questions. We can now subject all kinds of substances to extreme pressures and varying temperatures under strictly controlled laboratory conditions and measure changes at the atomic level. At present, we are able to reach pressures in excess of those found at the center of the Earth (3-million atmospheres) and temperatures exceeding 10,000° F (6000 kelvin).”

The grant will allow the scientists from the center’s partner organizations to further develop their techniques, view materials as they transform from one phase to another, determine chemical reactions, relate the variables of pressure, temperature, and volume to individual materials, and much more. They will also use experimental findings to refine so-called first-principles models, which use information on the fundamental properties of a material to predict their behavior under an array of different conditions.

Much of the research at CDAC will take place at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, Illinois, where the High Pressure Collaborative Access Team (HPCAT) --a new, state-of-the-art, high-pressure synchrotron x-ray facility--is located.** Researchers will also use specialized facilities at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratory. To ensure the continuation of this vital research and to train the next generation of scientists in this crucial area of materials science, the center will also serve as a training ground for students, postdoctoral fellows, and other investigators from around the country.

* The Carnegie/DOE Alliance Center is based at the Carnegie Institution and includes partners from Princeton University, University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the California Institute of Technology. The Carnegie Institution (www.CarnegieInstitution.org) has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research since 1902. It is a private, nonprofit organization with six research departments in the U.S.: Embryology, Terrestrial Magnetism, The Observatories, Plant Biology, Global Ecology, and the Geophysical Laboratory.

** HPCAT partner organizations include Carnegie, the Advanced Photon Source, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of Nevada--Las Vegas, and the University of Hawaii.