Gold Breaks teh Heat Barrier: Scientists Superheat Metal to Record-Breaking Temperatures
By Rachel Kim, News Editor & SEO Strategist, world-today-news.com
RENO, NV – In a stunning feat that challenges long-held assumptions about the limits of matter, an international team of scientists has successfully superheated solid gold to an astonishing 19,000 Kelvin – roughly 33,740°F (18,726°C). This groundbreaking achievement, detailed in a new study, pushes the boundaries of what was previously thought possible for solid materials and opens new avenues for research into extreme states of matter.for decades, physicists believed a solid’s stability was capped around three times its melting point, a concept known as the “entropy catastrophe.” This theory suggested that beyond this temperature, the increasing disorder within the material would inevitably lead to melting.Though, this new research demonstrates that ultra-fast heating can circumvent this limitation, allowing a solid to exist – albeit briefly – at temperatures far exceeding its normal melting threshold.
“This result really outstrips a long-assumed ceiling on how hot a solid can get before it gives way,” explains lead author Thomas G. White of the University of nevada, Reno (UNR).
How Did They Do it?
The team, collaborating with researchers at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and other institutions, employed a refined technique involving ultra-fast laser heating and precise X-ray probes. A thin gold sample was bombarded with an incredibly short pulse of energy – just 45 femtoseconds long – effectively “flashing” it to extreme temperatures.
Crucially,immediately following the laser pulse,an intense X-ray pulse was used to measure the atomic motion within the gold lattice. By analyzing subtle shifts in the scattered X-ray frequency, the researchers were able to directly determine the atoms’ speeds and, therefore, the temperature of the material.
This method, utilizing inelastic X-ray scattering (IXS), provides a “clean readout” of atomic velocities, bypassing the need for indirect modeling and offering an unprecedented level of accuracy. As the heating was so rapid, the gold lattice didn’t have time to expand and lose its crystalline structure, remaining solid for a fleeting trillionth of a second.
Why This Matters: Beyond gold and Into the Unknown
This breakthrough isn’t just about superheating gold. It has significant implications for our understanding of “warm dense matter” (WDM) – a high-energy state of matter found in the interiors of planets and within fusion targets. Accurately measuring the temperature of WDM has been a long-standing challenge due to its fleeting and minuscule nature.
The team’s work provides a novel and reliable method for measuring the temperature of these extreme states, paving the way for advancements in fields like astrophysics, materials science, and fusion energy research.
“The work also lays out a clean way to take the temperature of extremely hot, dense matter, which is somthing that has frustrated experimenters for decades,” notes the study.
This research demonstrates that the laws of thermodynamics aren’t being broken, but rather, that our understanding of how they apply under extreme conditions needed refinement. By outrunning the processes that typically lead to disorder,the team has opened a new window into the fascinating world of superheated solids and the mysteries of matter at its most extreme.
Keywords: Superheating, Gold, Extreme Temperatures, Warm Dense Matter, X-ray Scattering, Physics, Materials science, Thermodynamics, High Temperatures, UNR, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
