Duval Award Recipient

The use of x-ray diffraction to study-solid state matter under shock compression has a history spanning more than half a century. Initial results, utilising flash x-ray tubes, firmly established that crystalline order could be retained behind the shock front, as well as providing evidence for the capacity for materials to undergo polymorphic phase transitions on nanosecond timescales [1,2]. The first application of high power lasers to simultaneously create a sub-nanosecond quasi-monochromatic x-ray flash was undertaken in the mid-1980’s, and published in the same year as the inaugural Shock Compression Science (now Duvall) award was presented [3]. Since that time the field has developed dramatically on several fronts, providing a wealth of information on how materials flow (via plasticity) and change phase under these extreme conditions. Furthermore, the pulse shaping of the optical lasers that apply the dynamic pressure via laser ablation has allowed materials to be compressed more slowly than would occur within a shock, keeping materials closer to the isentrope. As the Hugoniot typically crosses the melt line at pressures of order 100s of GPa, these methods have provided access to diffraction studies of solid materials in the TPa regime [4]. In parallel, x-ray free-electron lasers and synchrotron x-ray sources provide a purity of x-rays that cannot be achieved with laser-plasma x-ray sources, and are leading to the development of novel x-ray scattering techniques such as inelastic thermal diffuse scattering [5], and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering [6], which provide information on temperature and electronic structure respectively. Further developments in laser technology now allow such measurements to be made at Hz rates.

[1] Q. Johnson, A.Mitchell, R. N. Keeler, and L. Evans, Phys. Rev. Lett. 25, 1099 (1970).

[2] Q. Johnson and A. C. Mitchell, Phys. Rev. Lett., 29, 1369 (1972).

[3] J. S. Wark, R. R. Whitlock, A. Hauer, J. E. Swain, and P. J. Solone, Phys. Rev. B 35, 9391 (1987).

[4] A. Lazicki et al.,Nature 589, 03140-4 (2021).

[5] J.S. Wark et al., J. Appl. Phys. 137, 155904 (2025).

[6] A. Forte et al., Communications Physics volume 7, 266 (2024).