Scientists at Harvard University have succeeded in turning the lightest of all the elements, hydrogen (H2), into a metal.
Thomas D. Cabot, Professor of the Natural Sciences Isaac Silvera and postdoctoral fellow Ranga Dias, have devoted many years to sought the material, called atomic metallic H2.
In their experiments, Silvera and Dias compressed a tiny H2 sample at 495 gigapascal (GPa), or more than 71.7 million pounds per square inch, which is greater than the pressure at the center of the Earth. At such extreme pressures, Silvera explained, solid molecular H2, which consists of molecules on the lattice sites of the solid, breaks down, and the tightly bound molecules dissociate to transforms into atomic H2, which is a metal.
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