Intelligent anvils applied to experimental investigations: state-of-the-art

Abstract

Since a long time, efforts have been made to improve the accuracy of pressure and temperature measurements in diamond anvil cell experiments performed in experimental petrology and high-pressure physics. Here, we report on the state-of-the-art of the research carried out during past few years with the diamond anvils carrying implanted electronic structures (‘intelligent’ anvils, iAnvils). The electronic structures are inserted a few microns below the diamond surface into the diamond lattice by high-energy implantation of boron. These structures can be used as pressure- and temperature-sensitive devices. Another useful application is the fabrication of micro-heaters integrated in the anvils. Pressure- and temperature-induced responses of the sensors (change of resistance) are quantified by low-current measurement equipment. Calibrations against pressure–temperature parameters are performed using well-known phase transitions or by using equation of state of pure substances. Results of in situ measurements performed on iAnvils under pressure and temperature are presented, together with calibration curves for pressure and temperature. Future experiments on in situ measurements of the conductivity dependence of the sensor structures are discussed.

Keywords:

• Diamond anvil cell
• Pressure
• Temperature
• Microstructures
• Intelligent anvils
• Ion implantation
• Experimental petrology
• High-pressure physics

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Bernd Burchard, Walter Maresch, Ümit Dagkaldiran, and Thomas Vogel for their kind support during the course of this research. We are very grateful to the workshop staff of the Institut für Geologie, Mineralogie und Geophysik at the Ruhr Universität Bochum for their precious help, especially Fried Schrimpf. Many thanks to the RUBION accelerator’s staff for their assistance during implantation experiments. The authors are very grateful to the Editor, Stefan Klotz, for his kind help and advises. The constructive comments from one anonymous reviewer resulted in improvements to the manuscript. This study was founded by an Egide PAI program (Procope 2006), the German Research Foundation DFG (grants SFB526 project D6, Ma 689/16-1) and by the French INSU DyETI and ANR JC (H. Bureau JC05_42281 grant) programs.