The design of 2/8-type high-pressure cell applied to in situ neutron diffraction*

Abstract

The DIA-type Kawai cell possesses a larger volume and a quasi-hydrostatic pressure environment and has been widely used in materials’ synthesis and x-ray diffraction experiments. However, few high-pressure in situ neutron diffraction experiments were performed in the DIA-type Kawai cell because there is no wide window for neutron diffraction and the second-stage anvils and guild block material attenuates the neutron signal significantly. In this work, we tentatively modified the normal DIA-type Kawai cell (MA 2-6-8) into a MA 2-8 mode by removing the six first-stage tungsten carbide anvils. As a consequence, the eight tungsten carbide anvils (Kawai cell) are directly driven by the guide blocks. The results of ex situ and in situ pressure calibration show that the cell pressure can reach 5 GPa with small truncation edge lengths (TEL) of 3 mm even at the load of 300 kN. It suggests that this MA 2-8 cell may open a new way for high-pressure and high-temperature in situ neutron diffraction.