Beamline electrostatic levitator for in situ high energy x-ray diffraction studies of levitated solids and liquids

Determinations of the phase formation sequence, crystal structures and the thermo-physical properties of materials at high temperatures are hampered by contamination from the sample container and environment. Containerless processing techniques, such as electrostatic sESLd, electromagnetic, aerodynamic, and acoustic levitation, are most suitable for these studies. An adaptation of ESL for in situ structural studies of a wide range of materials using high energy s30–130 keVd x rays at a synchrotron source is described here. This beamline ESL sBESLd allows the in situ determination of the atomic structures of equilibrium solid and liquid phases, undercooled liquids and time-resolved studies of solid-solid and liquid-solid phase transformations. The use of area detectors enables the rapid acquisition of complete diffraction patterns over a wide range s0.5–14 Å−1d of reciprocal space. The wide temperature range s300–2500 Kd, containerless processing environment under high vacuum s10−7–10−8 Torrd, and fast data acquisition capability, make BESL particularly well suited for phase stability studies of high temperature solids and liquids. An additional, but important, feature of BESL is the capability for simultaneous measurements of a host of thermo-physical properties including the specific heat, enthalpy of transformation, solidus and liquidus temperatures, density, viscosity, and surface tension, all on the same sample during the structural measurements. © 2005 American Institute of Physics. fDOI: 10.1063/1.1932447g