Internal resistive heating of non-metallic samples to 3000 K and >60 GPa in the diamond anvil cell.

High pressure–temperature experiments provide information on the phase diagrams and physical characteristics of matter at extreme conditions and offer a synthesis pathway for novel materials with useful properties. Experiments recreating the conditions of planetary interiors provide important constraints on the physical properties of constituent phases and are key to developing models of planetary processes and interpreting geophysical observations. The laser-heated diamond anvil cell (DAC) is currently the only technique capable of routinely accessing the Earth's lower-mantle geotherm for experiments on non-metallic samples, but large temperature uncertainties and poor temperature stability limit the accuracy of measured data and prohibits analyses requiring long acquisition times. We have developed a novel internal resistive heating (IRH) technique for the DAC and demonstrate stable heating of non-metallic samples up to 3000 K and 64 GPa, as confirmed by in situ synchrotron x-ray diffraction and simultaneous spectroradiometric temperature measurement. The temperature generated in our IRH-DAC can be precisely controlled and is extremely stable, with less than 20 K variation over several hours without any user intervention, resulting in temperature uncertainties an order of magnitude smaller than those in typical laser-heating experiments. Our IRH-DAC design, with its simple geometry, provides a new and highly accessible tool for investigating materials at extreme conditions. It is well suited for the rapid collection of high-resolution P–V–T data, precise demarcation of phase boundaries, and experiments requiring long acquisition times at high temperature. Our IRH technique is ideally placed to exploit the move toward coherent nano-focused x-ray beams at next-generation synchrotron sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]