Development of an Ultrafast Laser Instrument for Probing Earth and Planetary Materials under Extreme Pressures and Temperatures

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Knowledge of elasticity of Earth and planetary materials is needed for interpretation of the seismic anomalies, evaluation of the Earth?s and other planets compositional and dynamical models, while their transport properties (thermal and electrical conductivity) are the key parameters controlling the thermal history of the core and mantle and their dynamics. These properties are related to the planetary accretion and differentiation, the time evolution of mantle and core temperatures, and the generation of the Earth?s magnetic field. In spite of numerous recent technical developments, in situ measurements of the above listed materials properties under extreme conditions remain a challenging problem. This project will develop new, fast, fs laser-based instrumentation for in situ measurements of elasticity and transport properties (thermal and energy dependent optical conductivity) of materials subjected to extreme high pressure and temperature (P-T) in the diamond anvil cell (DAC). The project team will adapt the existing acoustic interferometry (AI) and time-domain thermoreflectance (TDTR) techniques for the pulsed laser heated DAC technology developed by this research group. They will design and build a broadband spectroscopy (BBOS) setup, which will allow in situ measurement of material optical properties at high P-T conditions from ultraviolet to mid infrared using an ultra-bright pulsed fs laser source.