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Updated: May 15, 2026

Synthesis and Microdiffraction at Extreme Pressures and Temperatures
Published on: October 7, 2013
Ultrafast Yttrium Hydride Chemistry at High Pressures via Non-equilibrium States Induced by an X-ray Free Electron
Emily Siska1, G Alexander Smith1,2, Sergio Villa-Cortes1
1Nevada Extreme Conditions Laboratory, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154, United States.
Abstract:
Controlling the formation and stoichiometric content of the desired phases of materials has become of central interest for a variety of fields. The possibility of accessing metastable states by initiating reactions by X-ray-triggered mechanisms over ultrashort time scales has been enabled by the development of X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs). Utilizing the exceptionally high-brilliance X-ray pulses from the EuXFEL, we report the synthesis of a previously unobserved yttrium hydride under high pressure, along with nonstoichiometric changes in hydrogen content as probed at a repetition rate of 4.5 MHz using time-resolved X-ray diffraction. Exploiting non-equilibrium pathways, we synthesize and characterize a hydride in a Weaire-Phelan structure type at pressures as low as 125 GPa, predicted using a crystal structure search, with a hydrogen content of 4.0-5.75 hydrogens per cation, that is enthalpically metastable on the convex hull.
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