Diamond Anvil Cell

The Diamond Anvil Cell (DAC) is a high-pressure device allowing to compress micron-sized samples up to extreme conditions, mimicking planetary interiors.

**Image of the two opposed diamonds compressing a gasket. https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/mineralogy/mineral_physics/diamond_anvil.html**

This device is composed of two opposed diamonds compressing a sample placed in a compression chamber. This sample chamber consists is a hole made in a metallic gasket (in our experiments, this gasket is made of Rhenium). Pressure can be increased using a membrane deformed by gas, as in the following picture, or using screws.

**Cross section of a Le Toullec type Diamond Anvil Cell device**

In order to reproduce experimentally the pressure as well as the temperature of planetary interiors, the sample placed between the diamonds could be heated using a Fiber laser focused on 20µm of diameter. This allows to locally reach temperature over 5 000 K. This setup is the so called Laser-Heated Diamond Anvil Cell (LH-DAC).

Video of a metallic sample heated using a YAG laser (courtesy of M. Mezouar, ESRF)

Updated on 20 March 2023