New condensed matter probes for diamond anvil cell technology

An overview of several new developments in diamond anvil cell techniques is presented. The novel techniques developed in our laboratory address fundamental properties of compressed materials, e.g. vibrational, electronic and spin excitations. We focus on the techniques made possible by third-generation synchrotron x-ray sources and by the development of the magnetic susceptibility probes in diamond anvil cells. A brief list of topics is given below: 1. Application of nuclear resonant inelastic x-ray scattering technique to the measurements of the phonon density of states and elastic properties of iron-containing materials at megabar pressures. 2. Magnetic collapse and high-spin to low-spin transitions probed by the x-ray K β emission process in transition metal compounds. 3. Superconductivity in multi-megabar pressure range studied by the magnetic susceptibility technique. Selected applications of these techniques will be covered, including elastic properties of compressed hcp-Fe, insulator-metal transition in FeO and superconductivity in Li