This award will support instrumentation and operation of an X-ray beamline dedicated to ultra-high pressure research at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The radiation source at the beamline is a superconducting wiggler insertion device which will generate intense high-energy polychromatic x-radiation, ideally suited for the characterization of microsamples at ultra-high pressure and elevated temperature inside a diamond-anvil cell (DAC). Instrumentation development for the beamline will include a new temperature measurement system to be used in conjunction with laser heating of samples in the DAC to temperatures up to 5000K. A cryogenic system will also be developed for use in low- temperature studies of condensed planetary ices and gases. Samples to be studied include a wide variety of phases considered likely candidates to form the interior of Earth and other planets. The beamline facility will serve the needs of the high-pressure community in the geosciences and will be open to researchers in this community as well as to materials scientists interested in ultra-high pressure phenomena.
