To the surprise of many, researchers have passed an important milestone with this revealing experimental measurement of Liquid Carbon, the first of its kind. This milestone breakthrough opens unexplored horizons of research to investigate the secrets of carbon’s structures and properties at extreme hot temperatures. Rocks that are mostly solid carbon can become liquid carbon if enough pressure is applied until temperatures exceed about 4,500 degrees Celsius. This temperature represents the highest melting point known for any material.
At the European XFEL, scientists carried out the experimental procedure with high-energy pulses from the DIPOLE100-X laser. To achieve this, they produced compression waves using a solid carbon sample. The compression waves cause the solid material to momentarily behave like a liquid. Unfortunately, this transformation takes just nanoseconds, or one billionth of a second. The applications of this study’s laser technique could change the way scientists explore matter at extreme pressures.
The Experimental Setup
With the DIPOLE experiment, a new era in the measurement of matter under extreme conditions has begun. Using laser compression, they made Liquid Carbon by solid carbon for a few tenths of seconds. The success of the experiment was deeply contingent on the DIPOLE100-X laser’s precision. It fired high-energy, wide-angle blasts, setting the stage for liquefaction.
After liquefaction, the structure of Liquid Carbon was probed with ultrafast X-ray pulses. Researchers had to run the experiment multiple times. They controlled factors such as when to deliver X-ray pulses and the pressure and temperature. They adopted a labor intensive but highly systematic sampling method to collect data. This data validates advance simulated predictions showing an unusual structure of Liquid Carbon.
“This is the first time we have ever been able to observe the structure of liquid carbon experimentally. Our experiment confirms the predictions made by sophisticated simulations of liquid carbon. We are looking at a complex form of liquid, comparable to water, that has very special structural properties,” – Prof. Dominik Kraus.
Insights into Liquid Carbon’s Structure
These results show that the atomic structure of Liquid Carbon is remarkably similar to that of solid state diamond. Each individual carbon atom in LC’s initial form has four nearest neighbors, перемещая собой. This setup is similar to the highly symmetric order of diamond’s crystalline lattice. This finding, besides confirming theoretical predictions, deepens our understanding of the behavior of carbon in extreme conditions.
The findings from this groundbreaking study should allow much quicker measurement times on like experiments in the future. It still takes on the order of hours to get results from these experiments. Yet, systems based on new automatic control and data processing systems may reduce this time frame to only a few seconds.
“We now have the toolbox to characterize matter under highly exotic conditions in incredible detail,” – Dr. Ulf Zastrau.
Future Implications
The successful measurement of Liquid Carbon’s structure is a notable breakthrough in materials science and high-pressure physics. The research team’s ability to liquefy solid carbon and analyze its structure provides a deeper understanding of carbon’s unique properties. Perhaps most importantly, this understanding would spill outside the field of geology, impacting advances in chemistry, materials science, and planetary sciences as well.
The study published in the journal Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09035-6) highlights the potential for future exploration into other exotic materials and their behaviors under extreme conditions. The best part is that researchers are constantly working to perfect their methods and tools. They expect to discover exotic matter that will put current “standard model” theories to the test.