Malcom F. Nicol, Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Executive Director, UNLV High Pressure Sciences and Engineering Center

Mail: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Box 454002, 4505 South Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154-4002.
Tel: (702) 895-1725; FAX: (702) 895-0804; E-mail: nicol@physics.unlv.edu

Amherst College, 1960; PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 1963. Fellow: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 1973-7; AAAS, 1991-; APS, 1996-.

Research Interests

We aim to do materials chemistry and physics that is unusual and FUN(!) to change conventional wisdom about how materials behave by studying them at very high pressures:

  • We know that oxygen is solid - even a metal -- at room temperature and may look red, orange , yellow, magenta, black, blue, or even transparent.
    Cesium iodide and xenon also are metals.
  • We polymerize CO, HCN, and other compounds, recover the polymers to characterize their properties.
  • We study high explosives (RDX, HMX, TATB, and HNS) and their decomposition products at high pressures and high temperatures to learn how they work and to prevent accidents.
  • We ask what new uses can be made of these facts and interesting predictions based upon these observations.
    • Will dinitrogen polymerize?
    • Can we make nitrogen metal, as predicted by theory?
    • Is CO2 the product when carbon burns at high pressures?
  • We search for new phases of materials at high pressures and temperatures and use diffration and spectroscopy to identify their structures.
  • We use Nuclear Resonant Inelastic X-Ray Scattering to determine vibrational spectra and magnetic properties of materials.
HiPSEC is a partner in HPCAT, a sector of beamlines at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. We regularly use this and other synchrotron x-ray sources to study structures and spectra of materials at pressures approaching 100 GPa (1 million atmospheres). We also use gas guns to observe how materials change structures and react under shock loading. Much of our work is done with conventional laboratory instruments; only our samples are as small as a circuit element in a modern computer. Techniques we develop, therefore, are appropriate to other micro-environments. We have collaborated in using them to discover new syntheses for GaN, to analyze thin diamond-like films and to characterize organic surface photoreactions.

Selected Recent Publications

  • R. Boehler, M. Nicol, C.-S. Zha, and M.L. Johnson, "Resistance Heating of Fe and W in Diamond-Anvil Cells", Physica B 139/140 (1986) 916-918.
  • C.S. Yoo and M. Nicol, "Chemical Reactions and New Phases of Solid C2N2 at High Pressure", J. Phys. Chem. 90 (1986) 6726-6731.
  • J. Yen and M. Nicol,"Melting and Other Phase Transitions of Oxygen from 100 to 700 K", J. Phys. Chem. 91 (1987) 3336-3341.
  • D.A. Young, C.S. Zha, R. Boehler, A.S. Zinn, J. Yen, M. Nicol, D. Schiferl, S. Kincaid, R.C. Hanson, and D. Pinnick, "Diatomic Melting Curves to High Pressure", Phys. Rev. B Rapid Comm. 35 (1987) 5353-5356.
  • R. Boehler, J.M. Besson, M. Nicol, M. Nielsen, J.P. Itie, G. Weill, S.Johnson, and F. Grey, "X-Ray Diffraction at High Temperatures and Pressures: the Density of FCC gamma-Fe to 42 GPa and 2300 K", J. Appl. Phys. 65 (1989) 1795-1797.
  • B.J. Baer and M. Nicol, "New Phase of an Oxygen-Nitrogen Alloy at High Pressure and Room Temperature Detected by Raman Spectroscopy," J. Phys. Chem. 93 (1989) 1683-1687.
  • B.J. Baer, J. Oxley, and M. Nicol, "The Phase Diagram of RDX (Hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-s-triazine) under Hydrostatic Pressure", High Pressure Research 2 (1990) 99-108.
  • H. Cynn, D.G. Isaak, R.E. Cohen, M. F. Nicol, and O.L. Anderson, "A High Pressure Phase Transition of Corundum Predicted by the Potential Induced Breathing Model", Amer. Mineral. 75 (1990) 439-442.
  • K. Aoki, B.J. Baer, H.C. Cynn, and M. Nicol, "High-pressure Raman study of one-dimensional crystals of a very polar molecule, HCN", Phys. Rev. B. 42 (1990) 4298-4303.
  • H. Cynn, S. K. Sharma, T.F. Cooney, and M. Nicol, "High-Temperature Raman Investigation of Order-Disorder Behavior in MgAl2O4 Spinel", Phys. Rev. B 45 (1992) 500-502.
  • S.W. Johnson, M. Nicol, and D. Schiferl, "Algorithm for Sorting Diffraction Data from a Sample Consisting of Several Single Crystals", J. Appl. Cryst. 25 (1993) 320-326.
  • C. S. Yoo, J. Akella, M. Nicol, and H. Cynn, "Direct Elementary Synthesis of Hexagonal and Cubic Boron Nitrides at High Pressures and Temperatures", Phys. Rev. B 56 (1997) 140-146.
  • D. Schiferl, M.Nicol, J. M. Zaug, S. K. Sharma, T. F. Cooney, S.-Y. Wang,T. R. Anthony, and J. F. Fleischer, "The Diamond 13C/12C Isotope Raman Pressure Sensor System for High-Temperature/Pressure Diamond-Anvil Cells with Aqueous and Other Chemically Reactive Samples", J. of Appl. Phys. 82 (1997) 3256-3265.
  • C.-S. Yoo, J. Akella, M. Nicol and H. Cynn, "Direct Elementary Synthesis of Hexagonal and Cubid Boron Nitrides at High Pressures and Temperatures," Phys. Rev. B 56 (1997) 140-146.
  • C.H. Wallace, J.L. O'Loughlin, L. Rao, S.-H. Kim, J.R. Heath, M. Nicol, and R. Kaner, "The Synthesis of Crystalline Gallium Nitride Using Solid-State Metathesis Reactions at High Pressures," Rev. High Pressure Sci. Technol. 7 (1998) 1040-1042.
  • C.S. Yoo, H. Cynn, and M. Nicol, "Elementary Reactions of Nitrogen and Oxygen with Boron and Carbon at High Pressures and Temperatures," Rev. High Pressure Sci. Technol. 7 (1998) 1054-1056.
  • C.-S. Yoo, H. Cynn, F. Gygi, G. Galli, V. Iota, M. Nicol, S. Carlson, D. Häusermann, L. Yang, and C. Mailhiot, “Crystal Structures of Carbon Dioxide at High Pressures: “Superhard” Polymeric Carbon
  • Dioxide.” Phys. Rev. Letters 83 (1999) 5527-5530.
  • C.-S. Yoo, H. Kohlmann, H. Cynn, M.F. Nicol and V. Iota, and T. Le Bihan, “Psuedo Six-fold Carbon Dioxide,” Phys. Rev. B. 65 (2002) 104103.
  • C.- S. Yoo, V. Iota, H. Cynn, M. Nicol, J.H. Park, T. Le Bihan, and M. Mezouar, “Disproportionation and Other Transformations of N2O at High Pressures and Temperatures to Lower Energy, Denser Phases,” J. Phys. Chem. B 107 (2003).5922-5925.
  • G.N. Chestnut, B.D. Streetman, D.Schiferl, R.S. Hixson, W.M. Anderson, M. Nicol, and Y. Meng, “Static X-ray Diffraction Study of Cerium: The Standard Approach & the Magic-Angle Approach,” in M.D. Furnish, Y.M. Gupta, and J.W. Forbes, eds., Shock  Compression of Condensed Matter - 2003 (American Institute of Physics, New York, 2004), pp. 37-40.
  • K.E. Lipinska-Kalita, M.G. Pravica, and M.Nicol, “Raman Scattering Studies of the High-Pressure Stability of Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate, C(CH2ONO2)4,” J. Phys. Chem. 109 (2005) 19223-19227.
  • V. Brazhkin, N. Dubrovinskaia, M. Nicol, N. Novikov, R. Riedel, V. Solozhenko, and Y. Zhao for the 1st International Workshop on Advanced Superhard Materials, “What does “Harder than Diamond” Mean? An Open Letter to the Materials Community,” Nature Materials 3 (2004) 576-577.
  • H. Giefers and M., Nicol, “High-pressure X-ray diffraction study of all Fe-Sn intermetallic compounds and one Fe-Sn solid solution,” J. Alloys Compds. 422 (2006) 132-144.
  • Y.R. Shen, R.S. Kumar, A. Cornelius, and M.F. Nicol, “High-pressure structural studies of dysprosium,” Phys. Rev. B 75 (2007) 064109.

UNLV High Pressure Science and Engineering Center

The High Pressure Collaborative Access Team (HPCAT) at the Advanced Photon Source

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