High-temperature high pressure cell for neutron-scattering studies

Abstract

In this study, a simple high-temperature high pressure cell concept has been developed to enable neutron diffraction and quasi-elastic and inelastic neutron-scattering studies to be conducted on large-volume powder samples of ceramic proton conductors at pressures of up to 1 GPa and at temperatures of up to 770 K. Details of the cell are provided, along with the first experimental neutron diffractograms (at 0.62 GPa and 300 K), quasi-elastic neutron-scattering spectra (at 0.58 GPa and 770 K) and inelastic neutron spectra (at 0.75 GPa and 530 K) determined for samples of BaCe_0.8Y_0.2O₃.

Keywords:

• neutron scattering
• ceramic proton conductor
• high pressure research
• pressure cells
• high temperatures

Acknowledgements

We thank the Swiss National Science Foundation under project number 200021-124812 (Effect of lattice volume and imperfections on the proton-phonon coupling in proton conducting lanthanide transition metal oxides: High pressure and high temperature neutron and impedance studies) and the European Union FP6 Mobility Marie Curie project MIRG no 042095 (X-ray and electrochemical studies on solid oxide fuel cells and related materials) for financial support. We are indebted to J. Mesot (PSI) for guidance in this project, T. Strässle (PSI) for his continued expert advice for the cell design, F. Ehrhardt (EMPA. Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) for support with cell loading and T.-W. Huang for assistance with the experiment at ILL. We are grateful to Edvinas Navickas (Kaunas University of Technology) for technical assistance with high pressure XRD. We also thank Prof. E. Mazza (ETHZ) for contribution concerning the mechanical integrity assessment of the HTP cell. This work is based on the experiments performed at the Swiss Spallation Neutron Source SINQ, PSI, Villigen, Switzerland, and the Institut Laue Langevin, Grenoble, France. The ALS is supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.