The hydrogen molecule is made from the first and lightest element in the periodic table. When hydrogen gas is either compressed or cooled, it forms the simplest molecular solid. This solid exhibits many interesting and fundamental physical phenomena. It is believed that if the density of the solid is increased by compressing it to very high pressures, hydrogen will transform into the lightest known metal with very unusual and fascinating properties, such as room temperature superconductivity and/or superfluidity. In this article, we provide a critical look at the numerous claims of hydrogen metallization and the current experimental state of affairs.

Compelling evidence indicates that the solid Earth consists of two physicochemically distinct zones separated radially in the middle of the lower mantle at ～1800 km depth. The inner zone is governed by pressure-induced physics and chemistry dramatically different from the conventional behavior in the outer zone. These differences generate large physical and chemical potentials between the two zones that provide fundamental driving forces for triggering major events in Earth’s history. One of the main chemical carriers between the two zones is H2O in hydrous minerals that subducts into the inner zone, releases hydrogen, and leaves oxygen to create superoxides and form oxygen-rich piles at the core–mantle boundary, resulting in localized net oxygen gain in the inner zone. Accumulation of oxygen-rich piles at the base of the mantle could eventually reach a supercritical level that triggers eruptions, injecting materials that cause chemical mantle convection, superplumes, large igneous provinces, extreme climate changes, atmospheric oxygen fluctuations, and mass extinctions. Interdisciplinary research will be the key for advancing a unified theory of the four-dimensional Earth system.

Diamond anvil cell techniques have been improved to allow access to the multimegabar ultrahigh-pressure region for exploring novel phenomena in condensed matter. However, the only way to determine crystal structures of materials above 100 GPa, namely, X-ray diffraction (XRD), especially for low Z materials, remains nontrivial in the ultrahigh-pressure region, even with the availability of brilliant synchrotron X-ray sources. In this work, we perform a systematic study, choosing hydrogen (the lowest X-ray scatterer) as the subject, to understand how to better perform XRD measurements of low Z materials at multimegabar pressures. The techniques that we have developed have been proved to be effective in measuring the crystal structure of solid hydrogen up to 254 GPa at room temperature [C. Ji et al., Nature 573, 558–562 (2019)]. We present our discoveries and experiences with regard to several aspects of this work, namely, diamond anvil selection, sample configuration for ultrahigh-pressure XRD studies, XRD diagnostics for low Z materials, and related issues in data interpretation and pressure calibration. We believe that these methods can be readily extended to other low Z materials and can pave the way for studying the crystal structure of hydrogen at higher pressures, eventually testing structural models of metallic hydrogen.

A 100 kJ-level laser facility has been designed to study inertial confinement fusion physics in China. This facility incorporates various diagnostic techniques, including optical, x-ray imaging, x-ray spectrum, and fusion product diagnostics, as well as general diagnostics assistance systems and central control and data acquisition systems. This paper describes recent developments in diagnostics at the facility.

Experiments at the GARPUN KrF laser facility and 2D simulations using the NUTCY code were performed to study the irradiation of metal and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) targets by 100 ns UV pulses at intensities up to 5 × 1012 W cm-2. In both targets, a deep crater of length 1 mm was produced owing to the 2D geometry of the supersonic propagation of the ablation front in condensed matter that was pushed sideways by a conical shock wave. Small-scale filamentation of the laser beam caused by thermal self-focusing of radiation in the crater-confined plasma was evidenced by the presence of a microcrater relief on the bottom of the main crater. In translucent PMMA, with a penetration depth for UV light of several hundred micrometers, a long narrow channel of length 1 mm and diameter 30 μm was observed emerging from the crater vertex. Similar channels with a length-to-diameter aspect ratio of ～1000 were produced by a repeated-pulse KrF laser in PMMA and fused silica glass at an intensity of ～109 W cm-2. This channel formation is attributed to the effects of radiation self-focusing in the plasma and Kerr self-focusing in a partially transparent target material after shallow-angle reflection by the crater wall. Experimental modeling of the initial stage of inertial confinement fusion-scale direct-drive KrF laser interaction with subcritical coronal plasmas from spherical and cone-type targets using crater-confined plasmas seems to be feasible with increased laser intensity above 1014 W cm-2.

Photoluminescence (PL) bands from potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) crystals are studied by time-resolved PL spectroscopy. KDP crystals irradiated at a laser fluence of 11.5 J/cm2 are found to have the highest probability of phosphorus–oxygen hole center defects and the lowest probability of phosphorus-oxygen electric center defects, in contrast to the probabilities of these defects for KDP crystals irradiated at 9.0 J/cm2. The probabilities of these two defects occurring in retired components are found to be intermediate between those for crystals irradiated at the two different fluences. The two types of defects may result from two different mechanisms and may interconvert under certain conditions. Thus, there are differences between the defects in KDP crystals irradiated at a high laser fluence and those in retired components.