Preparation and characterization of single crystal samples for high-pressure experiments

Abstract

To date, most research utilizing the diamond anvil cell (DAC) at very high pressure has been conducted with polycrystalline samples, thus the results are limited to addressing average bulk properties. However, experiments on single crystals can yield data on a range of orientation-dependent properties such as thermal and electrical conductivity, magnetic susceptibility, elasticity and plasticity. Here, we report new procedures to produce extremely high-quality metallic single crystal samples of size compatible with DAC experiments in the Mbar range. So far, we have produced samples of zinc, Al₂O₃, cobalt, molybdenum and cerium, and have evaluated the quality of the finished samples with white-light interferometry, synchrotron X-ray diffraction and inelastic X-ray scattering.

Keywords:

• Single crystal
• Polishing
• Laser cutting
• Diamond anvil cell

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Michael Krisch, Guillaume Fiquet, James Badro and Florent Occelli for their continuous support of the project. We are grateful to Michael Hanfland and Mohamed Mezouar for unscheduled diffraction beamtime that was critical to the ultimate success of this project. Kevin Knauss is thanked for his help with the white-light interferometric measurements. We greatly appreciate the constant and precious technical assistance of Carl Boro and David Ruddle. NSF EAR 0340846. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-Eng-48.