Development of Designer Diamond Anvils for High Pressure-High-Temperature Experiments in Support of the Stockpile Stewardship Program

The focus of this program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is to develop the next generation of designer diamond anvils that can perform simultaneous joule heating and temperature profile measurements in a diamond anvil cell. A series of tungsten-rhenium thermocouples will be fabricated onto to the anvil and encapsulated by a chemical vapor deposited diamond layer to allow for a complete temperature profile measurement across the anvil. The tip of the diamond anvil will be engineered to reduce the thermal conductivity so that the tungsten-heating coils can be deposited on top of this layer. Several different approaches will be investigated to engineer the tip of the diamond anvil for reduction in thermal conductivity (a) isotopic mixture of 12C and 13C in the diamond layer, (b) doping of diamond with impurities (nitrogen and/or boron), and (c) growing diamond in a higher concentration of methane in hydrogen plasma. Under this academic alliance with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), PI and his graduate students will use the lithographic and diamond polishing facility at LLNL. This proposed next generation of designer diamond anvils will allow multi-tasking capability with the ability to measure electrical, magnetic, structural and thermal data on actinide materials with unparallel sensitivity in support of the stockpile stewardship program