Predicting how metals respond under extreme conditions
The team used advanced simulations to calculate how the free energy of different crystal structures changes as electronic temperature rises. These calculations revealed consistent patterns across groups of metals, including transitions between common structures such as hexagonal (hcp), face-centred cubic (fcc), and body-centred cubic (bcc).
A key finding is that increasing electronic temperature tends to favour structures with lower density, driven by an effect known as electronic thermal pressure.
However, the behaviour is not universal. In some elements, subtle differences in electronic structure (especially the distribution of electrons near the Fermi level) lead to more complex or unexpected phase changes.
