U.S. Research Reveals Diamond Melting Mechanism at High Pressure, Potentially Enhancing Inertial Confinement Fusion Performance
A research team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the U.S. recently published a study in Nature Physics reporting that the latest dynamic compression experiments have, for the first time, directly recorded atomic structural changes during diamond melting under extreme high pressure. The experiments showed that under high-pressure conditions, solid diamond can float in liquid metallic carbon, similar to ice floating on water. Diamond is not only a high-hardness carbon material but is also used as the fuel target capsule shell in inertial confinement fusion experiments. When intense lasers drive the capsule implosion, the compression and melting behavior of the diamond shell can affect whether the fusion fuel reaches the required high-temperature, high-pressure state. Meanwhile, the planetary science community has long focused on the high-pressure behavior of carbon in the deep interiors of ice giant planets...
2026-08-26
