High pressure studies using two-stage diamond micro-anvils grown by chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

Ultra-high static pressures have been achieved in the laboratory using a two-stage micro-ball nanodiamond anvils as well as a two-stage micro-paired diamond anvils machined using a focused ion-beam system. The two-stage diamond anvils’ designs implemented thus far suffer from a limitation of one diamond anvil sliding past another anvil at extreme conditions. We describe a new method of fabricating two-stage diamond micro-anvils using a tungsten mask on a standard diamond anvil followed by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) homoepitaxial diamond growth. A prototype two-stage diamond anvil with 300 µm culet and with a CVD diamond second stage of 50 µm in diameter was fabricated. We have carried out preliminary high pressure X-ray diffraction studies on a sample of rare-earth metal lutetium sample with a copper pressure standard to 86 GPa. The micro-anvil grown by CVD remained intact during indentation of gasket as well as on decompression from the highest pressure of 86 GPa.

Keywords:

• high pressure techniques
• diamond growth
• micro X-ray diffraction
• rare-earth metals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy-National Nuclear Security Administration under Award Number DE-NA0002014. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is operated by LANS, LLC for the DOE-NNSA under contract no. DE-AC52-06NA25396. NV acknowledges funding support from LANL Science Campaigns 2. Portions of this work were performed at HPCAT (Sector 16), Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratory. HPCAT operations are supported by DOE-NNSA under Award No. DE-NA0001974 and DOE-BES under Award No. DE-FG02-99ER45775, with partial instrumentation funding by NSF. APS is supported by DOE-BES, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Use of the APS, an Office of Science User Facility operated for the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory, was supported by the US DOE under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.