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Plutonium Elastic Moduli, Electron Localization, and Temperature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Albert Migliori ,
Izabella Mihut-Stroe  and
Jon B. Betts
Albert Migliori
Affiliation:
migliori@cybermesa.com, Los Alamos National Laboratory, National High Magnetic Field Lab, MS E536, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, United States, 505 665-9039
Izabella Mihut-Stroe
Affiliation:
izabela@lanl.gov, Los Alamos National Laboratory, National High Magnetic Field Lab, MS E 536, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, United States
Jon B. Betts
Affiliation:
jbbetts@lanl.gov, Los Alamos National Laboratory, National High Magnetic Field Lab, MS E 536, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, United States
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Abstract

In almost all materials, compression is accompanied naturally by stiffening. Even in materials with zero or negative thermal expansion, where warming is accompanied by volume contraction it is the volume change that primarily controls elastic stiffness. Not so in the metal plutonium. In plutonium, alloying with gallium can change the sign of thermal expansion, but for the positive-thermal-expansion monoclinic phase as well as the face-centered-cubic phase with either sign of thermal expansion, and the orthorhombic phase, recent measurements of elastic moduli show soften on warming by an order of magnitude more than expected, the shear and compressional moduli track, and volume seems irrelevant. These effects point toward a novel mechanism for electron localization, and have important implication for the pressure dependence of the bulk compressibility.

Keywords

actinideelastic propertiesPu
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1104: Symposium NN – Actinides 2008—Basic Science, Applications and Technology , 2008 , 1104-NN08-07
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2008

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References

[1] Migliori, A., Pantea, C., Ledbetter, H., Stroe, I., Betts, J.B., Mitchell, J.N., Ramos, M., Freibert, F., Dooley, D., Harrington, S., Alpha-plutonium's polycrystalline elastic moduli over its full temperature range, J. Acoustical Society of America, 122 (4), 1994–2001 (2007).Google Scholar
[2] Migliori, A., Ledbetter, H., Lawson, A.C., Ramirez, A.P., Miller, D.A., Betts, J.B., M., M. Ramos and Lashley, J.C., Unexpected elastic softening in delta-plutonium, Phys. Rev. B, 73 (5), 52101–1 (2006).Google Scholar
[3] Wallace, D.C., Electronic and phonon properties of six crystalline phases of Pu metal, Wallace, D.C., Phys. Rev. B 58, 15433 (1998).Google Scholar