Multi-scale microdiffraction and characterization of heterogeneous high-pressure syntehsis products*

The laser-heated DAC is a powerful technique to synthesize high-pressures materials. High P-T synthesis products are often too challenging to be characterized with powder diffraction techniques because high-pressure structures can be fairly complex and patterns are typically mixed phase. Microdiffraction mapping[1] allows obtaining a whole sample characterization, including grain size and phase heterogeneities, chemical and strain heterogeneities and, at the same time, robust structure factors allowing solution and refinement of relatively complex materials. By spatially resolving the sample chamber in 2D and the diffraction effects in the 3D reciprocal space we were able to solve and refine crystal structures of new polymorphs[2] and compounds [3-4] and achieve comprehensive samples characterization.

[1] Lavina et al., JoVE, 2013, e50613.
[2] Lavina et al., arXiv, 2017,1709.06667v1.
[3] Lavina et al. PNAS, 2011, 108 (42) 17281-17285.
[4] Lavina and Meng, Science Advances, 2015, e1400260.