Earth's core, the deepest part of our planet, is characterized by extremely high pressure and temperature. It is composed of a liquid outer core and solid inner core.
Earth's interior structure and superionic inner core. Credit: IGCAS The inner core is formed and grows due to the solidification of liquid iron at the inner core boundary. The inner core is less dense than pure iron, and some light elements are believed to be present in the inner core. A joint research team led by Prof. He Yu from the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGCAS) has found that the inner core of the Earth is not a normal solid but is composed of a solid iron sublattice and liquid-like light elements, which is also known as a superionic state. The liquid-like light elements are highly diffusive in iron sublattices under inner core conditions. This study was published in Nature on Feb. 9. A superionic state, which is an intermediate state between solid and liquid, widely exists in the interior of planets. Using high-pressure and high-temperature computational simulations based on quantum mechanics theory, researchers from IGCAS and…