Extreme Materials

Three ways we’re exploring extreme materials at the Earth and Planets Laboratory

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Every day, the Earth and Planets Laboratory builds on the Geophysical Lab’s legacy to push the boundaries of high-pressure science. We develop techniques, probe new experimental questions, expand our computation capabilities, collaborate with colleagues, and fill our labs with top-tier instrumentation (and scientists).


Postdoc Spotlight: Tiange Bi predicts new materials under pressure

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Tiange Bi uses her interdisciplinary set of skills and computational expertise to predict the synthesis of new materials. Her research is primarily focused on crystal structure prediction of new clathrate structures and theoretical studies of the transport properties of iron alloys in the Earth and planetary cores. 


New form of silicon could enable next-gen electronic and energy devices

Visualization of the structure of 4H-Si viewed perpendicular to the hexagonal axis. A transmission electron micrograph showing the stacking sequence is displayed in the background.

A team led by Carnegie’s Thomas Shiell and Timothy Strobel developed a new method for synthesizing a novel crystalline form of silicon with a hexagonal structure that could potentially be used to create next-generation electronic and energy devices with enhanced properties that exceed those of the “normal” cubic form of silicon used today.