Future Milestones

At the workshop we discussed several aspects of a low-temperature and high-pressure diffraction experiments on I15. Here we list of the first milestones we anticipate for this project. Future projects will divide between obtaining structural data, at the lowest temperatures achievable, and at pressures of the order 10 GPa, and those where pressure is raised to the 100 GPa range in the 10 K range. Both depend on progress with cryostat operation and installation.

The Holzapfel-Syassen type of DAC was chosen as a known cell design. Other cells can be considered but this implies adaptation to the cold finger and engineering effort with unknown lead time: User cell designs can be considered but require mounting modifications for the cryostat.

Image-plate powder diffraction will be the first geometry, and provided the off-line commissioning of the optical access is successful, ruby fluorescence will be the baseline scale for pressure determination.

In the first instance, a pressure range near 30 GPa enables us to use our standard set-up for beam conditioning (e.g. long-KB mirrors for focussing, E<~35keV). This first step is essential in determining the timescale for the extended pressure range. The installation of the micro-focus optics (focal length ~ 100mm) is underway for room-temperature experiments and compatibility with the cryostat can then be assessed.

We expect the first commissioning experiments* will be possible in late summer 2010. We would make a commissioning call (independent of the normal call for proposals) in spring 2010.

^*Depending on budget review