Pressure-induced Invar effect in Fe-Ni alloys.

We have measured the pressure-volume (P-V) relations for cubic iron-nickel alloys for three different compositions: Fe 0.64Ni (0.36), Fe 0.55Ni (0.45), and Fe 0.20Ni (0.80). It is observed that for a certain pressure range the bulk modulus does not change or can even decrease to some minimum value, after which it begins to increase under still higher pressure. In our experiment, we observe for the first time a new effect, namely, that the Fe-Ni alloys with high Ni concentrations, which show positive thermal expansion at ambient pressure, become Invar system upon compression over a certain pressure range.