Abstract
The electrical conductivity of shock compressed sulfur has been measured at pressures up to 60kb and the mechanism of the electrical conductivity has been discussed.
Two kinds of sulfur specimens were used for the experiment. One was made of industrial grade sulfur and the other was of high purity sulfur. A sulfur disk specimen which was sandwiched in between two copper disk electrodes was subjected to shock pressure as the electrode was impacted by a projectile accelerated by a powder gun.
It was revealed that both the industrial and the high purity sulfur showed 104 order change in electrical conductivity under the applied pressure, and there was no difference between the two.
From the discussion about the conduction mechanism of the shock compressed sulfur, it was clarified that the increase of electrical conductivity with the applied pressure is caused by the increase of electrical carriers activated thermally by shock compression heating, and pressure has only a secondary effect. According to our discussion, the increase in electrical conductivity of sulfur under the applied pressure is not attributable to the mechanism associated with melting as proposed by Berg, but to the one related to the behavior of solid sulfur.
