Yang Liuxiang, Karandikar Amol, Boehler Reinhard
Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5251 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington, DC 20015, USA.
Rev Sci Instrum. 2012 Jun;83(6):063905. doi: 10.1063/1.4730595.
A new method for measuring melting temperatures in the laser-heated diamond cell is described. This method circumvents previous problems associated with the sample instability, thermal runaway, and chemical reactions. Samples were heated with a single, 20 milliseconds rectangular pulse from a fiber laser, monitoring their thermal response with a fast photomultiplier while measuring the steady state temperature with a CCD spectrometer. The samples were recovered and analyzed using scanning electron microscopy. Focused ion beam milling allowed to examine both the lateral and the vertical solid-liquid boundaries. Ambient pressure tests reproducibly yielded the known melting temperatures of rhenium and molybdenum. Melting of Re was measured to 50 GPa, a 5-fold extension of previous data. The refractory character of Re is drastically enhanced by pressure, in contrast to Mo.
