
Never-before-seen “black nitrogen” plugs puzzle in periodic table - sahin-boydas
https://newatlas.com/materials/black-nitrogen-allotrope-periodic-table/
======
h2odragon
> the team exposed nitrogen to extreme heat and pressure. It was pressed
> together between two diamonds to 1.4 million atmospheres of pressure, and
> over 4,000 °C (7,232 °F).

> The temperature at the inner core's surface is estimated to be approximately
> 5700 K (5430 °C or 9806 °F) ... The pressure in the Earth's inner core is
> slightly higher than it is at the boundary between the outer and inner
> cores: it ranges from about 330 to 360 gigapascals (3,300,000 to 3,600,000
> atm)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_inner_core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_inner_core)

There's probably even weirder states of nitrogen and other elements not that
far away from us. Whole chemistries and semiconductor-ish effects we're
guessing at. Fun!

~~~
noir_lord
This is why I love science, any field where “what happens if we squish it
really really hard and then superheat it?” is answered by “let’s find out” is
one that has my admiration.

Scientists the world over have my respect for what they do.

~~~
hpkuarg
"Science isn't about why, it's about why not!"

------
colanderman
Dumb question, how does one convince nitrogen, a gas, to sit still between the
heads of those two diamonds to be compressed?

~~~
divbzero
They employed either a very persuasive graduate student, or a chamber filled
with pure nitrogen.

From the experimental method section of the original paper: [1]

“ _A BX90-type diamond anvil cell equipped with 80 μm diameter diamond anvil
culets was prepared. A 200 μm thick rhenium foil was indented down to 12 μm
and a sample cavity of 40 μm in diameter was laser-drilled at the center of
the indentation. Two agglomerates of submicron-sized gold particles, each of
approximately 2 μm in size, were loaded into the sample chamber to serve as
both YAG laser absorbers and pressure gauges. The cell was then loaded with
pure nitrogen gas at ~1200 bars._ ”

[1]:
[https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.12...](https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.216001)

~~~
revicon
Here's what a BX90-type diamond anvil cell looks like...

[https://aip.scitation.org/action/showOpenGraphArticleImage?d...](https://aip.scitation.org/action/showOpenGraphArticleImage?doi=10.1063/1.4768541&id=images/medium/1.4768541.figures.f1.gif)

------
joelthelion
Dumb question: with all we know about theoretical quantum physics, couldn't we
compute what happens in these extreme conditions? Or is it still
computationally intractable? If so, why is that?

~~~
danharaj
Only hydrogen has an analytic solution. Even helium requires approximations
because the electrons interact. Approximation requires an understanding of the
structure of the wavefunction which gets increasingly complex as we add more
particles to the system that interact and entangle with one another like
electrons in an atom do. Even further, that's for single atoms that aren't
interacting strongly with their environment. Here we're talking about an
ensemble of nitrogen atoms interacting with each other in a somewhat extreme
environment.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartree%E2%80%93Fock_method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartree%E2%80%93Fock_method)

~~~
goalieca
All of the cool computer science problems are in the other sciences. This one
in particular looks like a challenging engineering problem to scale up.

~~~
v77
According to 'Devs', you just need a few quantum computers and lots of gold
tinfoil.

~~~
ShamelessC
Don't forget the vacuum sealed quantum levitating elevator!

------
logfromblammo
> _" the new substance is crystalline, occurs in two-dimensional sheets, and
> could one day be useful in advanced electronics."_

> _" the material itself remains unstable and it quickly dissolves when the
> heat and pressure are relaxed."_

So... advanced electronics that can only exist at 1.4 million atmospheres and
4000 degrees C? What are we building, here, computers that only work inside
the sun?

By this insane standard, what material would _not_ one day be useful in
advanced electronics?

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dredmorbius
So, when someone mentions nitrogen, high temperatures, and high pressures, in
the same sentence, what comes to my mind isn't electronics so much as
explosives.

~~~
arrosenberg
Pure nitrogen forms a dimer and is inert. The nitrogen that goes boom involves
hydrogen and oxygen molecules.

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
Not quite. Pure nitrogen forms an inert dimer with a very strong bond. The
nitrogen that goes boom is the energy released by forming such a bond when you
liberate nitrogen from complexes with other things than single nitrogen atoms.
Like hydrogen and carbon and maybe oxygen.

But this stuff in the article is pure nitrogen, and _isn 't_ a dimer, and
certainly isn't inert (it decayed back to the dimer when pressure was
released). It'd be a crappy explosive (needs to be kept in a diamond anvil
cell...) but it would have released the energy used to form it. In theory
there are other allotropes, like octaazacubane (N8) that might be more stable
and would be frighteningly efficient explosives.

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Vysero
This makes me wonder, are there are any other elements in the periodic table
which seem to be missing their allotropes or was N the only one?

------
moneytide1
Metallic hydrogen is thought to be possible using the diamond stamping method
mentioned in the article.

~~~
mturmon
More on the metallic hydrogen investigations:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/science/metallic-
hydrogen...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/science/metallic-hydrogen-
lasers.html)

It appears that one can use lasers, diamond vises, and/or numerical simulation
to get properties of metallic hydrogen.

~~~
moneytide1
I have only read a few short articles about it, but after it is compressed to
a certain point, can it remain in the metallic state after the vise/laser is
removed?

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thelibrarian
Being previously unfamiliar both with the black phosphorus allotrope, and with
newatlas.com, I clicked on the link wondering if this would be the new “red
mercury”. I was pleasantly surprised that it is much more interesting (and
scientifically valid) than that.

------
itsangaris
Can anyone more specifically comment on some of the potential applications for
this newly discovered material?

~~~
duskwuff
None, at least not directly. It's an allotrope which can only exist under
extreme physical conditions.

There are many such allotropes of well-known substances. For instance, solid
water has over a dozen allotropes (including ice-IX, or "ice-nine", which will
_not_ turn you into a human popsicle). Most of the interesting allotropes of
ice only form under pressures of >100 MPa, so they are never seen under
terrestrial conditions. The same applies to most other allotropes, with a few
notable exceptions in metals and metalloids (like tin and sulphur).

It's unclear to me what the author of the article had in mind when they
suggested the "potential" that "black nitrogen might have for electronics".
Unless the author is imagining electronics which must be placed under immense
pressure and heated to thousands of degrees to remain stable?

~~~
air7
There's always the possibility that a method will be found that will allow the
material to maintain at least some of these properties after "returning" to
normal temp/pressures conditions.

~~~
duskwuff
That seems unlikely for a compound which is stable as a gas at STP. You can
sometimes stabilize an allotrope of a compound which would otherwise be stable
as another allotrope, but there's no real way (that I'm aware of) to stave off
a phase transition, especially one as energetic as solid/gas.

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redis_mlc
The significance of this article is that you don't need a big science lab like
CERN to do useful experiments.

Diamond anvil cells are under $10,000:

[https://diamondanvils.com/product-category/diamond-anvil-
cel...](https://diamondanvils.com/product-category/diamond-anvil-
cells/optical/)

~~~
airstrike
> you don't need a big science lab like CERN to do useful experiments

Did anyone really ever claim that?

~~~
Zensynthium
No, but that's still pretty cool to hear (even though everything else to
conduct the experiment was probably a bit pricier if not just as pricey)

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peter303
Sounds like a new weapon for the next Star Trek or James Bond movie.

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sillysaurusx
What are some other open mysteries in physics / chemistry / science? Anyone
have some favorites?

Bonus points for simplicity + obscurity. Everyone knows that dark matter is an
open mystery, but I suspect not too many people knew about black nitrogen.

EDIT: There are some nice lists on Wikipedia that are fun to dig through:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_unsolved_problems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_unsolved_problems)

 _Is Feynmanium the last chemical element that can physically exist? That is,
what are the chemical consequences of having an element with an atomic number
above 137, whose 1s electrons must travel faster than the speed of light?_
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_periodic_table#Elemen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_periodic_table#Elements_above_the_atomic_number_137)

~~~
adam_cadien
How do glasses form? What order parameter determines the properties of
liquids? Are there an unifying properties determining the structure of atomic
liquids? What determines the network properties of liquids?

Here's a more tangible one; Is solid hydrogen stable?

I did my PhD in this area and even discovered liquid polymorphism in atomic
Cerium.

There are tons of unanswered questions like this! It's bonkers how many things
we know we don't know, just think of the things we don't know we don't know :p

~~~
tsomctl
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known
unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But
there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
- Rumsfeld

~~~
sparky_z
I've never understood why people mock him for saying this. It frequently shows
up on lists of stupid political quotes/"Bushisms". But not only is it
absolutely true and important for planners to understand, it's stated clearly
and concisely. Do most people just look at it and see word salad? I don't get
it.

~~~
schoen
It might be interesting to see a list of "often-mocked sayings that have a
point".

Two that I know of involving politicians and the Internet are

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_techno...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology#Urban_legend_that_Gore_claims_to_have_invented_the_Internet)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes)

I'm sorry to say that I've personally made fun of both of these people for
these soundbites in a way that I now regret.

~~~
wwwwewwww
Did Gore actually say that he invented the internet? The linked Wikipedia
article says that it's an urban legend.

~~~
barbecue_sauce
The quote is "I took the initiative in creating the Internet" which is often
misinterpreted as Al Gore saying he "created the internet" which I doubt was
his actual intention. At a political/governmental level, he was actually quite
instrumental in legitimizing and evangelizing the importance of network
communications as well as funding programs that were necessary for its
creation. He probably should have phrased it as "I took the initiative in the
creation of the internet" or that he was "instrumental in the creation of the
American internet".

------
klyrs
> To create the new form [nitrogen] was pressed together between two diamonds
> to 1.4 million atmospheres of pressure, and over 4,000 °C (7,232 °F)... It
> appears to have good conductivity, much like that of graphene, which could
> make it useful in future electronic devices.

Are you kidding me? Kinda grasping at straws if that's the application -- who
are we selling these electronics to, magma golems? This is good & pure
science, please don't sully it with such foolishness.

~~~
nikanj
Everyone knows you can't report on science without promising cellphones that
you only have to charge once per week.

~~~
virgilp
So, basically, Nokia 3310?

~~~
laichzeit0
What's even more depressing is that most people on this forum will probably
not get this reference :(

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hathym
> could one day be useful in advanced electronics

We're still waiting for graphene.

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elbear
I love the sense of humor found in the comments of this thread.

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aaronlifshin
The name reminds me of Big Bismuth!

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JulianMorrison
'Tis but a flesh wound!

