Liquid-expanded optical properties

The fundamental optical properties of a fluid metal were defined in Section 3.3. Optical measurements of expanded liquid mercury, like those of the alkali metals, are valuable for the detailed information they provide about the evolution of electronic structure under large changes of temperature and pressure. In terms of the band-overlap model, the optical conductivity cr electronic densities of states of the valence band, N (E), and of the conduction band, N E), according to the relation (Mott and Davis, 1979)... 

Second, in addition to the above, the fact that many expanded porphyrins are highly colored makes their use as dyes an obvious possibihty. Here their planar nature makes them particularly attractive as chromophores for use in liquid crystals and optical data storage applications. Also, these properties could make them of interest as photo-sensors in various clinical or pseudo-clinical situations. For instance, the high affinity by certain sapphyrins for enveloped viruses and cholesterol rich liposomes suggests that expanded porphyrins could be used to detect and/or destroy a variety of unwanted biological targets, including arterial sclerotic plaque. 

Mercury has the lowest known critical temperature (1478 °C) of any fluid metal. It is therefore particularly attractive to experimentalists. Mercury is also considerably less corrosive than many metals, especially the alkali metals discussed in the preceding chapter. These relatively favorable circumstances permit precise measurement of the electrical, optical, magnetic, and thermophysical properties of fluid mercury. With care, one can control temperatures accurately enough to determine the asymptotic behavior of physical properties as the liquid-vapor critical point is approached. Such truly critical data are especially valuable for exploring the relationship between the liquid-vapor and MNM transitions. Of the expanded metals exhibiting MNM transitions, mercury is therefore the most extensively investigated. It is the only expanded divalent metal whose critical region has proven to be experimentally accessible. 

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