Pulsed laser heating and temperature determination in a diamond anvil cell

Pulsed laser heating in a diamond anvil cell has several advantages over cw heating: it can suppress thermally activated diffusion of the pressurization medium into the gasket and diamond, suppress chemical reactions of impurities with the sample and environment, requires far less average power and thus less heating of the sample environment, and can attain very high temperatures. It was recently shown that it is possible to accurately measure the melting point of platinum and other materials at ambient conditions using a pulsed laser and a simple ungated CCD detector, measuring the time-averaged irradiance. We show that this same technique can be used for high-pressure samples in a diamond anvil cell. As a demonstration, the high-pressure melting curve of iron is reproduced and compared to literature values. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.