Portable double-sided laser-heating system for Mössbauer spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction experiments at synchrotron facilities with diamond anvil cells

Abstract

The diamond anvil cell (DAC) technique coupled with laser heating is a major method for studying materials statically at multimegabar pressures and at high temperatures. Recent progress in experimental techniques, especially in high-pressure single crystal X-ray diffraction, requires portable laser heating systems which are able to heat and move the DAC during data collection. We have developed a double-sided laser heating system for DACs which can be mounted within a rather small (~0.1 m(2)) area and has a weight of ~12 kg. The system is easily transferable between different in-house or synchrotron facilities and can be assembled and set up within a few hours. The system was successfully tested at the High Pressure Station of White Beam (ID09a) and Nuclear Resonance (ID18) beamlines of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. We demonstrate examples of application of the system to a single crystal X-ray diffraction investigation of (Mg(0.87),Fe(3+) (0.09),Fe(2+) (0.04))(Si(0.89),Al(0.11))O(3) perovskite (ID09a) and a Synchrotron Mössbauer Source (SMS) study of (Mg(0.8)Fe(0.2))O ferropericlase (ID18).