Estimating the Compressibility of Osmium from Recent Measurements of Ir-Os Alloys under High Pressure.

Several fcc- and hcp-structured Ir-Os alloys have been recently studied up to 30 GPa at room temperature by means of synchrotron-based X-ray powder diffraction in diamond anvil cells. Using their bulk moduli, which increase with increasing osmium content, showing a deviation from linearity, and after employing a thermodynamical model, it was concluded that the bulk modulus for osmium is slightly smaller than that for diamond. Here, a similar conclusion is obtained upon employing an alternative model, thus strengthening the conclusion that osmium is the densest but not the most incompressible element. This is particularly interesting for Earth Sciences because it may be of key importance toward clarifying the anomalous elastic properties of the Earth's core.