Keynote
THERMODYMANIC PROPERTIES AND STUCTURE OF LIQUID METALS

The physics of liquid metals has received renewed attention in the last decade. Constant improvements in table-top and large scale (e.g., synchrotron) experiments have probed thermodynamic regimes, previously inaccessible and revealed new structural and physical properties of liquid metals and alloys. These advances in experimental systems indicate the existence of surprisingly rich phase diagrams of elemental liquid metals and liquid binary alloys. Theoretical studies which include large scale simulations and ab intio techniques have also predicted new phase transitions in the liquid state.

In the present contribution we shall review the progress that was made in the field of liquid metals and present recent advances in the understanding of the structural properties of non-simple liquid metals [1,2,3]. The correlation between thermodynamic properties and structure will be demonstrated for complex liquid metals of column 15 [2,4]. In addition, we will suggest the use of highly accurate sound velocity measurements in the liquid state to obtain the pressure dependence of binary phase diagrams [5].

References

1. Mayo, M. et al. Determination of the structure of liquids: an asymptotic approach. J. Appl. Crystallogr. 46, 1582–1591 (2013).
2. Mayo, M. et al. Short range order in liquid pnictides. J. physics. Condens. matter 25, 505102 (2013).
3. Mayo, M., et al. Short range order in elemental liquids of column IV. J. Chem. Phys. 142, 194501 (2015).
4. Emuna, M. et al. Liquid structure and temperature invariance of sound velocity in supercooled Bi melt. J. Chem Phys. 140, 094502 (2014).
5. Emuna, M., et al. Anomalous and normal dependence of the sound velocity in the liquid Bi-Sb system. J. Non-Cryst. Solids 362, 1–6 (2013).