Amorphous boron composite gaskets for in situ high-pressure and high-temperature studies

ABSTRACT

The diamond anvil cell (DAC) is a fundamental device used to explore the properties of materials under extreme pressure and temperature (P/T) conditions. In the past years, simultaneous high P/T DAC experiments using the resistively heated DAC (RH-DAC) techniques have been developed for studying materials properties in a wide P/T range. However, the mechanical instability of metallic gaskets used for sample confinement at high P/T conditions remains a limiting factor for exploiting the accessible P/T range of the RH-DAC. In this study, we present a new gasket configuration that overcomes these limitations. It is based on an amorphous boron–epoxy mixture inserted in a rhenium gasket. We show how these gasket inserts stabilize the sample chamber over a wide P/T range, allowing monitoring sample properties using X-ray diffraction and absorption spectroscopy up to 50 GPa and 1620 K.

KEYWORDS:

• High pressure and temperature
• diamond anvil cell
• resistive heating
• internal heater
• assembled gaskets

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility for providing beam time, Herve Cardon for advices on the perforated diamond geometry, Stany Bauchau for providing technical equipment during the experiment and Fabrice Brunet for fruitful discussions. The authors want to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments, which improved the presentation of this manuscript, and S. Klotz for fast editorial handling.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.