We show that strong enough electric fields can trigger nucleation of needle-shaped metallic embryos in insulators, even when the metal phase is energetically unfavorable without the field. This general phenomenon is due to the gigantic induced dipole
moments acquired by the embryos which cause sufficient electrostatic energy gain. Nucleation kinetics are exponentially accelerated by the field-induced suppression of nucleation barriers. Our theory opens the venue of field driven material synthesis. In particular, we briefly discuss synthesis of metallic hydrogen at standard pressure.
Electric field induced nucleation is introduced as a possible mechanism to realize a metallic phase of hydrogen. Analytical expressions are derived for the nucleation probabilities of both thermal and quantum nucleation in terms of material parameter
s, temperature, and the applied field. Our results show that the insulator-metal transition can be driven by an electric field within a reasonable temperature range and at much lower pressures than the current paradigm of P > 400 GPa. Both static and oscillating fields are considered and practical implementations are discussed.
