Bonding in liquid carbon studied by time-resolved x-ray absorption spectroscopy

Even the most basic properties of liquid carbon have long been debated due to the challenge of studying the material at the required high temperature and pressure. Liquid carbon is volatile and thus inherently transient in an unconstrained environment. In this paper we use a new technique of picosecond time-resolved x-ray absorption spectroscopy to study the bonding of liquid carbon at densities near that of the solid. As the density of the liquid increases, we see a change from predominantly sp-bonded atomic sites to a mixture of sp, sp(2), and sp(3) sites and compare these observations with molecular dynamics simulations.