Extremely high pressures ( 10 TPa) and temperatures (5 10 5 K) have been produced using a single laser pulse (100 nJ, 800 nm, 200 fs) focused inside a sapphire crystal. The laser pulse creates an intensity over 10 14 W=cm 2 converting material within the absorbing volume of 0:2 m 3 into plasma in a few fs. A pressure of 10 TPa, far exceeding the strength of any material, is created generating strong shock and rarefaction waves. This results in the formation of a nanovoid surrounded by a shell of shock-affected material inside undamaged crystal. Analysis of the size of the void and the shock-affected zone versus the deposited energy shows that the experimental results can be understood on the basis of conservation laws and be modeled by plasma hydrodynamics. Matter subjected to record heating and cooling rates of 10 18 K=s can, thus, be studied in a well-controlled laboratory environment. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.166101 PACS numbers: 81.07.ÿb, 47.40.Nm, 62.50.+p, 81.40.ÿz The study of matter in conditions of extreme pressure and temperature is an exciting area of condensed matter physics relevant to the formation of new materials and modeling the state of matter inside stars and planets. Creation of such extreme conditions in the laboratory is, however, a formidable experimental task. So far, pressures in excess of 0.1 TPa have been obtained using a diamond anvil in stationary conditions, while transient pressures behind shock waves generated by chemical or nuclear explosions or generated using powerful lasers up to 50 TPa have been reported [1,2]. Here we present experimental evidence that one can create TPa pressures, many times the strength of any material, using low energy pulses from a conventional tabletop laser.Recent studies have demonstrated [3][4][5][6][7][8] that sub-ps laser pulses tightly focused inside transparent dielectrics (glasses, crystals, and polymers) can produce detectable sub-micrometer-sized structural modifications, including voids. This requires intensities in excess of 10 14 W=cm 2 which results in a highly nonlinear light-matter interaction with most dielectrics being ionized early in the laser pulse. To achieve such high intensities the laser beam should be tightly focused using high numerical aperture optics into a spot whose dimensions are of the order of the laser wavelength ( ).Previously the formation of voids in silica was associated with self-focusing of the laser beam [3]. In fact void formation can occur in conditions favorable for selffocusing if the beam is weakly focused into the sample [9]. Previously, however, there has been no systematic study of void formation by single fs pulses in conditions when self-focusing cannot occur. We demonstrate here that in such conditions nanovoids are formed by the extreme temperatures and pressures created by optical breakdown and these drive shock and rarefaction waves in the surrounding material. It is possible that new materials [10 -12] with altered chemical properties [13] could be formed by such micro-explosions.The inte...

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