Chinese scientists successfully synthesized ultra-high energetic materials, metal nitrogen

The reporter learned from the Hefei Institute of Material Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that the Institute of Solid State Physics used ultra-fast detection methods and extreme high-temperature and high-pressure experimental techniques to successfully synthesize ordinary nitrogen into ultra-high energetic materials to polymerize nitrogen and metal nitrogen, revealing metal nitrogen. Key issues such as the range of extreme conditions of synthesis, the transformation mechanism, and the photoelectric characteristics have taken the research on metal nitrogen a big step forward.

The project was completed by the Research Group of Extreme Environment Quantum Matter Center of the Institute of Solid State Physics, and the relevant research results were published in the journal of the international authoritative academic journal Nature.

Nitrogen material polymers are one of five conventional ultra-high energetic materials that contain large amounts of releasable chemical energy. Under extreme high temperature and high pressure conditions, nitrogen molecules undergo a series of complex structural and property changes, which form polymeric nitrogen and metal nitrogen. These two nitrogen materials are typical ultra-high energetic materials, which are the commonly used explosive TNT energy density. More than ten times, it has the advantages of high energy density, no pollution, and recyclability. If it can be used as a fuel for the first and second stage propellers, it is expected to increase the current takeoff weight by several times.

In view of the limitations of traditional high temperature and high pressure experimental methods and detection methods, previous studies only partially reflected the behavior of nitrogen under extreme conditions, failing to fully reveal the pressure, temperature and physical properties of the transition from insulating nitrogen to metal nitrogen. Holographic phase diagram.

On the basis of the original diamond-on-anvil device, the scientific research team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences introduced pulsed laser heating technology and ultra-fast spectral detection method, and built an in-situ integrated experimental system integrating high temperature and high pressure generation and physical property measurement. The researchers obtained the extreme conditions of high temperature and high pressure, and studied the optical absorption and reflection characteristics of nitrogen molecules during the transformation under the conditions, and determined the phase boundary of the dissociation of nitrogen molecules and the extreme pressure and temperature conditions of metal nitrogen synthesis. The range and in-situ spectroscopy studies further confirmed that the experimentally synthesized polymeric nitrogen with semi-metallic properties and "metal nitrogen" with perfect metallic properties were synthesized.