Laboratory facilities

The Laboratory facilities include:

·        Two Piston-cylinder apparatii, one of which has a kiloton force capacity (and can be converted to a multianvil press for experiments to pressure of ~ 15 GPa).     

     The kiloton press is equipped with facilities for insitu differential thermal analysis (DTA) studies to determine melting temperature as a function of pressure, compressibility measurements, and controlled heating-cooling experiments at high pressure.

·        Many hydrothermal apparatii for experiments at low pressure including rapid quench experiments

·        Controlled gas atmosphere furnaces with controlled heating-cooling facilities

·        A thermogravimetric setup for insitu reaction kinetic study by continuous monitoring of weight loss

·        Powder x-ray diffractometer

·        Thin film deposition set up

Important supporting facilities:

·        Mineral Physics Laboratory (Dr. Robert F. Downs): 2 four circle single crystal x-ray diffractometers, Raman spectroscope, Diamond cells

·        Chemistry Department: An area detector single crystal diffractometer (routinely used by us)

·        Planetary Science: Multi-anvil press (Prof. Mike Drake), Electron microprobe (joint facility)

·        Arizona State University : Ion probe (long-term collaborator: Dr. Rick Hervig)