Compression-induced solidification of shock-melted cerium

Abstract

Compression-induced solidification has been observed in cerium on nanosecond timescales. A series of experiments was conducted in Sandia National Laboratories' Z Facility in which cerium was shock melted and subsequently shocklessly, or ramp, loaded across the melt line inducing solidification. The signature of solidification manifested in the recovery of material strength and the propagation of waves at the local elastic sound velocity. Density functional theory simulations of cerium along the experimental phase-space path exhibit spontaneous freezing to a tetragonal phase at the same pressure and closely predict the observed physical properties of solid and liquid cerium near melt.