ANVILS GENERAL INFO
Diamonds have the highest compressive strength as compared to the rest of the materials. This allows it to withstand even the highest static pressures encountered in ultra-high pressure anvil applications. As diamonds are transparent to light and X-rays, a diamond anvil allows direct observations of the behaviour of materials under ultra-high pressure. Furthermore, the diamond's transparency also allows the possibility of heating the specimen by laser. The diamond anvil is an essential tool of modern high- pressure research. Pressures in excess of half megabar can be routinely achieved with diamond anvils in well designed equipment, and the attainment of pressures in excess of 4 megabars has been reported. We manufacture a variety of standard types of diamond anvils including those for the highest pressures.
We cut our diamond anvils skillfully from rough, natural stones to have 8 or 16 pavilion facets. The anvils are cut to correct crystallographic orientation (table and culet parallel to the (100) diamond plane) and care is taken to insure parallellism of the table and culet. The culet of diamond anvils typically ranges form 0.1 mm to 1 mm diameter. The smaller culets are necessary to achieve higher pressures. It is recommended to bevel the culet for these high pressures (= above 1 megabar). The selection of the diamond type should be based upon the experimental techniques which are to be employed
DIAMOND TYPE |
EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES |
| Type Ia | Diffraction Optical |
| Type Ia (Raman (ultra) low flourescence) |
Raman Diffraction Optical |
| Type IIa | Infrared Diffraction Optical |
| Type IIas (Raman ultra low fluorenscence) |
Infrared Raman Diffraction Optical |