Highly intense monochromatic X-ray diffraction facility for high-pressure research at SPring-8

Beamline BL10XU at SPring-8, designed for X-ray diffraction experiments using diamond anvil cells at high pressure and low/high temperature, is continuously upgraded. The X-ray source, optics, and attractive experimental equipment such as simultaneous measurement systems have been optimized over the past years. The high energy and high intensity monochromatic X-ray beams emitted by an undulator source, focused using a characteristic X-ray refractive lens, have enabled us to obtain excellent counting statistics and high-resolution X-ray diffraction data even from a highly compressed sample under multi-megabar pressure. At BL10XU, low- and high-temperature conditions are achieved using a cryostat (10–300 K) and double-sided laser-heating system (1000–4000 K), respectively. Numerous results have been obtained in the fields of high-pressure materials science and mineral physics: for instance, the structural information on novel materials under pressure, including new pressure-induced structural phase transitions, the measurements of equations of states, and the phase-equilibrium data of Earth interior minerals.