Scientists have used ultrafast high-intensity lasers to superheat gold to 14 times its melting point without turning the solid metal into a liquid. The record-breaking experiment, which was described ...

Gold remains perfectly solid when briefly heated beyond previously hypothesized limits, a new study reports, which may mean a complete reevaluation of how matter behaves under extreme conditions. The ...

Phase transitions surround us--for instance, liquid water changes to ice when frozen and to steam when boiled. Now, researchers at the Carnegie Institution for Science* have discovered a new ...

Using powerful computer simulations, researchers have identified a material with a higher melting point than any known substance. The computations show that a material made with hafnium, nitrogen, and ...

Researchers used a laser to superheat a sample of gold past its theoretical limit and directly measured its temperature. Greg Stewart / SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Researchers recently heated ...

Phase transitions occur when the chemical potentials (including bulk and interfacial contributions) of two phases are equal. For systems with large interfaces, such as thin films or small particles, ...

A metastable liquid may exist under supercooling, sustaining the liquid below the melting point such as supercooled water and silicon. It may also exist as a transient state in solid–solid transitions ...

A longstanding problem in physics has finally been cracked by Professor Kostya Trachenko of Queen Mary University of London's School of Physical and Chemical Sciences. His research, published in the ...

Researchers have discovered a new phenomenon of so-called metastability in a liquid phase. This state is common in supercooled liquids, which are liquids that cool below the freezing point without ...