Development of Dynamic Ellipsometry for Measurements or Iron Conductivity at Earth's Core Conditions.

The CHEDS researchers are engaged in a collaborative research project to study the properties of iron and iron alloys under Earth’s core conditions. The Earth’s core, inner and outer, is composed primarily of iron, thus studying iron and iron alloys at high pressure and temperature conditions will give the best estimate of its properties. Also, comparing studies of iron alloys with known properties of the core can constrain the potential light element compositions found within the core, such as fitting sound speeds and densities of iron alloys to established innerEarth models [1, 2]. One of the lesser established properties of the core is the thermal conductivity, where current estimates vary by a factor of three [2, 3, 4]. Therefore, one of the primary goals of this collaboration is to make relevant measurements to elucidate this conductivity.