SIMPLE IMPROVEMENTS TO A DIAMOND-ANVIL HIGH-PRESSURE CELL FOR X-RAY DIFFRACTION STUDIES.

Several simple modifications are presented and discussed for more rapid operation of a diamond-anvil pressure cell. Some of the improvements involve a new design for the diamond support table and the incident x-ray collimator. It is also demonstrated how, through application of energy-dispersive x-ray diffraction techniques, limited structural information can be obtained from a diamond-anvil pressure-cell in a matter of minutes. As an example of this procedure, a high-pressure polymorph of bismuth is examined. Generally speaking, a reduction of about an order of magnitude is realized in the high-pressure x-ray data collection time through implementation of the proposed modifications. Refs.