A REVERSIBLE TRANSITION IN LIQUID BISMUTH UNDER PRESSURE

Moran Emuna ¹ Shlomi Matityahu ² Eyal Yahel ² Guy Makov ¹ Yaron Greenberg ²

¹Department of Materials Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
²Department of Physics, Nuclear Research Center Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

The electrical resistance of solid and liquid Bi has been measured at high pressures and temperatures using a novel experimental design for high sensitivity measurements utilizing a “Paris-Edinburgh” large volume press. An anomalous sharp decrease in resistivity with increasing temperature at constant pressures was observed in the region beyond melting which implies a possible novel transition in the melt. The proposed transition was observed across a broad pressure range both in heating and cooling cycles of the sample demonstrating its reversibility. From the measurements it was possible to determine a `phase-line` of this transition on the Bi pressure-temperature phase diagram terminating at the melting curve.