Partial support is requested to install a dispersive-Raman spectroscopy and a laser heating system for in-situ high pressure and temperature measurements using the diamond-anvil cells at MIT. This is the first part of the PI's long term plan to build a spectroscopy system which enables to measure Raman spectra of minerals at in-situ high pressure and temperature. The system will enable to perform in situ determination of phase diagrams and thermodynamic properties of materials in laboratory, which has been only possible in third generation synchrotron sources. Major technical advances in the system are in (1) reducing the detection of thermal radiations from the sample at high temperature, (2) temperature measurements using the intensity and frequency of the Stokes and anti-Stokes of phonon modes, and (3) reducing the background from the fluorescence of the sample. This proposal is independent of any COMPRES funded work and the primary purpose of this proposal is to allow the PI, who is in his early career as a junior faculty, to set up a high pressure lab at MIT in order to produce high-quality scientific results and train students at MIT. The existing research groups at MIT will also benefit from this micro-analysis and Raman-imaging technology. As the PI has been successfully collaborating with different groups, the facility will be open to students and researchers in the New England area where large user facilities are relatively distant. Considering that MIT is located in the area where many undergraduate institutes are densely populated and this facility will be only high-pressure mineral physics lab in the New England area, the facility is expected to provide research opportunities in experimental geophysics to many undergraduate students in the area and this will be particularly important to attract next generation researchers for mineral physics community. ***
