Offline Development of Electrical Resistivity Measurements in a Paris-Edinburgh Press

Beamline 16BMB at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) hosts a robust Paris-Edinburgh (PE) press program that offers various techniques for structure-property relationship studies. A new technique was recently incorporated during the APS upgrade—electrical resistivity measurements to study high-pressure and temperature phase transitions. The technique will be integrated with X-rays once beamline operations resume and will provide an offline platform when BMB hutch access is restricted, as 16BMB and BMD can no longer operate simultaneously. Validation of the platform was performed using materials with well-known phase transitions. Results show clear and pronounced solid-solid and solid-liquid phase transitions in elemental Bi, Sn, and Cu, as well as excellent melt containment—at least twice the melting temperature for Sn. This will constitute the first PE press platform to fully integrate electrical resistivity and synchrotron X-rays, thus allowing detailed structure-property relationship studies with an emphasis on the precise determination of phase boundaries and liquid phase stability.

This work was performed at HPCAT (Sector 16), Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratory. HPCAT operations are supported by DOE-NNSA’s Office of Experimental Sciences. The Advanced Photon Source is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.