Speaker
Description
The simultaneous exposure of materials to high pressure and swift heavy-ion irradiation represents a unique experimental approach, pioneered at the GSI Helmholtz Center Darmstadt [1-3]. Ion-irradiation induced structural transformations have been observed in compressed samples, including non-equilibrium phase transitions [1], the formation of novel phases and their stabilization [2].
Here we present the recently commissioned experimental platform for the investigation of coupled extreme conditions [3]. It enables the exposure of micrometer-sized samples compressed to high static pressures in diamond anvil cells (DACs) to swift heavy ions with energies between 200 and 480 MeV/u, providing in-situ Raman spectroscopy and optical microscopy while minimizing ion irradiation induced effects in the DAC [3]. Technical developments and capabilities of the setup are presented along with selected results on coupled ion-irradiation-pressure-induced modifications in various materials.
The authors gratefully acknowledge funding and beamtime provided by the GSI Helmholtz Center, as well as synchrotron beamtime at PETRA-III, DESY (Hamburg, Germany) and funding from the BMFTR (05K25RF3 and 05K22RF3).
[1] Glasmacher, U.A. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 96(19), 2006, p. 195701
[2] Lang, M. et al., Nat. Mat., 8(10), 2009, p. 793
[3] Tzifas, I. et al. Phys. Rev. Res., 8(2), 2026, p. 023054
[4] Schröck, C. et al., Phys. Rev. B, 112(1), 2025, p. 014111
[5] Liang, J. et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 28(13), 2026, 7835-7839.