Scientific breakthrough lost? Unique metallic hydrogen sample disappears

[Garrison L. Hilliard]

Last month physicists at Harvard University achieved what they
described as “the holy grail of high-pressure physics,” when they
created the first metallic hydrogen material.

However, Science Alert reports that the sample has disappeared, much
to the dismay of experts. The sample was stored at temperatures around
-316 degrees Fahrenheit, the report said, noting that the metallic
hydrogen was kept at high pressure between two diamonds in a vice-like
device.


Earlier this month the vice failed when testing caused the diamonds to
break, according to Science Alert, which says that scientists haven’t
been able to find a trace of the metallic hydrogen.

“Basically, it’s disappeared,” Isaac Silvera, Harvard’s Thomas D.
Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences, who led the research, told
Science Alert. “It’s either someplace at room pressure, very small, or
it just turned back into a gas. We don’t know.”

The professor said that researchers are preparing another experiment
to see if they can replicate the pressures from the first experiment
and make metallic hydrogen again.

In a video posted to YouTube last month Harvard Postdoctoral Fellow
Ranga Dias described how the vice-like device works. “We load the
sample as a liquid state, but as soon as we pressurize it, the
molecules get closer together and become a solid, and then we squeeze
the solid,” he explained. “Even though this device looks very small,
we can generate pressure more than the center of Earth.”

Silvera also discussed the ways that metallic hydrogen could impact
technology in the video, with potential uses ranging from highly
efficient electrical wiring to magnets. “You could make magnets that
are used in MRIs, for example, that could work at room temperatures,”
he said. “Right now the magnets have to be cooled with liquid helium.”

NASA supports Harvard’s research into the breakthrough material.
Silvera explained that if the metallic hydrogen is in a “metastable”
state and converted to molecular hydrogen, it releases a massive
amount of energy. “It would revolutionize rocketry,” he said.

Metastability refers to the “excited” state of an atom, nucleus or
other system, according to Harvard. In the case of the material
created by Harvard, this means that the metal hydrogen would remain
metallic, even if the pressure is taken off.

Scientists had been attempting to make metallic hydrogen for more than
80 years, according to Science Alert.


Harvard has not yet responded to a request for comment on this story
from Fox News.


http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/02/27/scientific-breakthrough-lost-unique-metallic-hydrogen-sample-disappears.html