Mineral Physics Institute
Summer Scholars Program

Joseph Batir
Southern Illinois University
Geology Major
Mentor: Michael Vaughan

Deformation measurements at Lower Pressures and Temperatures

Few pieces of machinery have the capability to reach a wide range of pressures and temperatures while maintaining stability; even less also have x-ray mechanisms of acquiring data. The goal of this summer is to design a cell assembly that has the ability to be used in the multi-anvil press at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The desired range of pressure is 1 to 2 GPa at 800 degrees Celsius that can be maintained for several hours to run an experiment, currently a deformation experiment. The main setback is the heating mechanism inside the cell assembly does not consistently work.

The reason for the lower pressure is because some minerals will change structure at a certain pressure and temperature boundary. Usually these parameters will not occur on or near earth's surface. Therefore, the results would not be applicable to real world applications or areas close to the earth's surface. If the cell assembly is designed successfully, minerals in their lower pressure and temperature structures will be able to be tested with the help of x-ray data techniques to gain more knowledge than previously able.