As much pressure as Uranus’ core: The first materials synthesis research and study in the terapascal range

 

Jules Verne could not even dream of this: A research team from the University of Bayreuth, together with international partners, has pushed the boundaries of high-pressure and high-temperature research into cosmic dimensions. For the first time, they have succeeded in generating and simultaneously analyzing materials under compression pressures of more than one terapascal (1,000 gigapascals). Such extremely high pressures prevail, for example, at the center of the planet Uranus; they are more than three times higher than the pressure at the center of the Earth. In Nature, the researchers present the method they have developed for the synthesis and structural analysis of novel materials.