PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Albertazzi, Bruno
AU  - Ozaki, Norimasa
AU  - Zhakhovsky, Vasily
AU  - Faenov, Anatoly
AU  - Habara, Hideaki
AU  - Harmand, Marion
AU  - Hartley, Nicholas
AU  - Ilnitsky, Denis
AU  - Inogamov, Nail
AU  - Inubushi, Yuichi
AU  - Ishikawa, Tetsuya
AU  - Katayama, Tetsuo
AU  - Koyama, Takahisa
AU  - Koenig, Michel
AU  - Krygier, Andrew
AU  - Matsuoka, Takeshi
AU  - Matsuyama, Satoshi
AU  - McBride, Emma
AU  - Migdal, Kirill Petrovich
AU  - Morard, Guillaume
AU  - Ohashi, Haruhiko
AU  - Okuchi, Takuo
AU  - Pikuz, Tatiana
AU  - Purevjav, Narangoo
AU  - Sakata, Osami
AU  - Sano, Yasuhisa
AU  - Sato, Tomoko
AU  - Sekine, Toshimori
AU  - Seto, Yusuke
AU  - Takahashi, Kenjiro
AU  - Tanaka, Kazuo
AU  - Tange, Yoshinori
AU  - Togashi, Tadashi
AU  - Tono, Kensuke
AU  - Umeda, Yuhei
AU  - Vinci, Tommaso
AU  - Yabashi, Makina
AU  - Yabuuchi, Toshinori
AU  - Yamauchi, Kazuto
AU  - Yumoto, Hirokatsu
AU  - Kodama, Ryosuke
TI  - Dynamic fracture of tantalum under extreme tensile stress
AID  - 10.1126/sciadv.1602705
DP  - 2017 Jun 01
TA  - Science Advances
PG  - e1602705
VI  - 3
IP  - 6
4099  - http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1602705.short
4100  - http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1602705.full
SO  - Sci Adv2017 Jun 01; 3
AB  - The understanding of fracture phenomena of a material at extremely high strain rates is a key issue for a wide variety of scientific research ranging from applied science and technological developments to fundamental science such as laser-matter interaction and geology. Despite its interest, its study relies on a fine multiscale description, in between the atomic scale and macroscopic processes, so far only achievable by large-scale atomic simulations. Direct ultrafast real-time monitoring of dynamic fracture (spallation) at the atomic lattice scale with picosecond time resolution was beyond the reach of experimental techniques. We show that the coupling between a high-power optical laser pump pulse and a femtosecond x-ray probe pulse generated by an x-ray free electron laser allows detection of the lattice dynamics in a tantalum foil at an ultrahigh strain rate of ~2 × 108 to 3.5 × 108 s−1. A maximal density drop of 8 to 10%, associated with the onset of spallation at a spall strength of ~17 GPa, was directly measured using x-ray diffraction. The experimental results of density evolution agree well with large-scale atomistic simulations of shock wave propagation and fracture of the sample. Our experimental technique opens a new pathway to the investigation of ultrahigh strain-rate phenomena in materials at the atomic scale, including high-speed crack dynamics and stress-induced solid-solid phase transitions.