In situ observation of pressure-induced electrical resistance changes in zirconium: pressure calibration points for the large volume press at 8 and 35 GPa

Abstract

Simultaneous in situ pressure–resistance measurements were carried out up to 40 GPa using a multianvil apparatus with synchrotron-based X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements. Pressure-induced electrical resistance changes in zirconium were measured at ambient temperatures and two discontinuities were observed around the α–ω and ω–β structural phase transitions. The transition pressures were strictly determined from simultaneous measurements of the electrical resistance and in situ XRD as 7.96±0.16 and 34.5±0.3 GPa, respectively, using an equation of state for gold as the pressure scale. The precisely determined transition pressures are available for room temperature pressure calibration points for large volume presses installed at offline laboratories.

Keywords:

• zirconium
• electrical resistance
• in situ XRD measurement
• multianvil apparatus
• pressure calibration

Acknowledgements

We thank Y. Nakajima and S. Ono for assistance in the synchrotron experiments, and Y. Nishihara and S. Whitaker for comments on the early version of the manuscript. High pressure experiments and in situ XRD measurements were carried out at SPring-8 (2003B0411-ND2b-np). This study was supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research in Japan for ET (12002006, 18204050) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research Fellowships for Young Scientists for YT (03356).