Chemical pressure in actinide systems

✍ Scribed by Jean-Marc Fournier

• Book ID: 103938693
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 371 KB
• Volume: 190
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0921-4526
• DOI: 10.1016/0921-4526(93)90441-8

✦ Synopsis

The effect and interest of applying external pressure on a physical system is, through its compressibility, to change its volume independently of other possible parameters influencing its physical properties. It is however possible to apply internal pressure to a given compound by chemical alloying, due to changes in atomic sizes. In general, during this procedure other basic parameters in particular the valence and conduction band's position, shape and filling are severely affected. However, in well chosen situations, when substituted elements have quite similar external electronic configurations, the essential modification is really the volume change. This possibility is interesting to study the effect of pressure on physical properties for which pressure cells cannot be used (or only with difficulty). The added interest is that it is the only way to apply negative pressure. Presented examples are the uranium monochalcogenides and plutonium metal