Diamond Anvil Cell (IMAGE)
Caption
An international team working at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory has devised a method for achieving static pressures vastly higher than any previously reached. Above: an image of a diamond anvil cell inside the pressure chamber. Traditionally, a diamond anvil cell works like a vice that squeezes the sample between two single-crystal diamonds to produce extreme pressure. In the new device, a miniscule ball of nano-crystalline diamonds sits atop each single-crystal diamond. As the diamonds are squeezed together, the load is transferred from the larger diamond to the nano-ball. This causes the nano-diamond balls to compress and actually get harder, allowing them to both generate and withstand extreme pressures.
Credit
Image via Dubrovinskaia <i>et al./Science</i>.
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