A Laser Heated Dynamic Diamond Anvil Cell: Simultaneous Extremes of Pressure and Temperature

Dynamic diamond anvil cells are a powerful tool for studying the kinetics of pressure induced phase transformations; however, they are generally limited to use at room temperature by their incompatibility with the optics required for laser heating. At low temperatures, important thermally activated phenomena—including both nucleation and diffusion—are sluggish, resulting in phase transformations that are too slow to observe on laboratory timescales. This work describes the design of a novel double-sided laser heating compatible dynamic diamond anvil cell (LH-dDAC) which enables access to millisecond compression and temperatures in the range of 1,500-4,000 K. The utility of the new LH-dDAC is demonstrated by examining the quartz-stishovite transition in silica. At low temperatures, quartz is unable to transform to the high-pressure stishovite structure, instead experiencing pressure-induced amorphization and the formation of metastable phases. By expanding the range of accessible compression rate/temperature space, the new LH-dDAC allows the study of phase transformation kinetics in diffusionally controlled phase transformations.