Dr. Raymond Jeanloz [UC Berkeley, USA]

Time: 10:00 am, May 6, 2014

Place: HPSTAR Meeting Room (Shanghai)

Title: Toward Atomic Pressures

Abstract:

Static high-pressure experiments reach conditions at which the chemical bond is fundamentally changed, and are complemented by dynamic laser-compression methods that can achieve Gbar pressures at which atomic structure is altered.  The combination of static and dynamic methods, with samples probed by spectroscopy and diffraction, opens a new regime of "kilovolt chemistry" at which core-electron orbitals participate in bonding, and theory is both challenged and extended.

Bio. of Dr. Raymond Jeanloz

Dr. Raymond Jeanloz (PhD, California Institute of Technology, 1979) has taught at Harvard University and, since 1982, at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is Professor of Earth and Planetary Science and of Astronomy, and Senior Fellow in the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science. In addition to research and teaching, he has been an adviser to the University and to the U.S. Government in areas of resources and environment as well as national and international security. He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, American Physical Society and Mineralogical Society of America, and member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Raymond Jeanloz' group studies the properties of materials at high pressures and temperatures through a combination of static (diamond-anvil cell) and dynamic (shock-wave) experiments, as well as condensed-matter theory, documenting the changes in chemical-bonding properties induced by pressure. LBNL's Advanced Light Source synchrotron offers unique opportunities for characterizing materials at planetary-interior conditions. Current work involves using large laser facilities to generate shock waves through samples already at high pressure, inside a diamond cell, in order to re-create Gigabar pressures relevant to the interiors of super-giant planets.